The players

Azeem Rafiq’s revelations have reverberated from the top to the absolute grassroots of the English game, but nowhere have the tremors been felt more powerfully than inside dressing rooms. Sources describe a feeling of utter fear at the potential ramifications of past messages sent or received, many of which may have been conducted through the fog of alcohol, and deep divisions over how best to handle what is arguably cricket’s biggest crisis.

Truth and reconciliation or batten down the hatches? Deny, deny, deny or honest self-reflection over past behaviour?

Where there is agreement is the urgent need for help and education. “Players want clarity going forward – what can and can’t I say?” says Monty Panesar, the former England spinner. “There will be some players thinking, ‘I thought that was you and me as a mate having banter’. There will be others thinking, ‘I didnt realise I offended you’. Dialogue is now really important… so it’s owned by each team. It can’t be a box-ticking exercise where players don’t want to open up. That is when the culture in the team becomes really rotten.” 

Panesar has also suggested establishing cricket’s version of Kick it Out, the anti-racism charity in football. “Someone who specialises in this, and knows how to deal with this, could come in and really help.”

The administrators

“Rocked and fractured.”

These are just two words used inside the ECB this week to describe the national sport it currently presides over and what one county chair called the “utterly shambolic” handling of the Azeem Rafiq case. While the ECB does still feel certain that its strategy to inspire a greater diversity of young cricketers at parks level can be delivered, there is an internal acceptance that anti-discrimination policies have been exposed. A crunch meeting of the game’s stakeholders on Friday ended with a delicate agreement over a way forward based on a 12-point action plan.

Conversations inside the ECB have centred on the urgent implementation of a game-wide whistle-blowing policy which also includes a “softer” mechanic that will allow participants to raise poor cultures and practices without it necessarily becoming a full-blown disciplinary issue. They are also working with the Professional Cricketers’ Association on a major drive around dressing-room cultures and with the counties on ethnicity targets, with leaders told that their boards should reflect local communities.

The government

There was a moment during Tuesday’s parliamentary select committee on Tuesday when even the MPs seemed momentarily stunned as they tried to compute the ECB’s internal governance structure.

Damian Green had asked a simple question. “Who holds the ECB to account?” Meena Botros, the ECB’s director of legal and integrity, referenced something called “the independent regulatory committee”. Green, thankfully, did not miss the obvious follow-up. “Who appoints the regulatory committee?” Answer: “The ECB.” Julie Evans looked incredulous. “It sounds a bit like the wild west,” she said. And there, in a nutshell, is the issue facing the Government, not just in respect of cricket, but a whole host of sports in this country.

Self-regulation is what sports crave but, as we routinely see on countless issues, what incentive does an industry’s promoter then have to tackle difficult issues before a tipping point of public outcry has been reached? The MP Tracey Crouch is expected to imminently recommend an independent football regulator and, horrified by what has come out, there is now serious talk inside Westminster of the “nuclear option” and legislation for cricket. “I feel as though I have been complacent,” said Julian Knight, the chair of the DCMS select committee. “I did not think that it [cricket] was systematically racist. We can’t put anything off the table.”

The grassroots clubs

Among the many viewers as events unfolded in parliament on Tuesday was Robbie Book, a club cricketer with Totteridge Millhillians CC and the chair of the Club Cricket Conference, an umbrella body which is among the main representatives of recreational cricket.

“No one has been able to ignore it,” says Book. “The last few days have made clubs question the whole ethos [of the sport].” 

The CCC is currently gathering opinion and hopes to produce a more collective view next week but, speaking in a personal capacity, Book is convinced by the ‘bottom up’ potential for positive change. He stresses how clubs are a “microcosm” of diverse communities and the importance of committees being truly representative of their members. “We can all pull together at grassroots to help elite cricket get out of the mess it’s got itself into,” he said. 

Telegraph Sport has separately heard of a deep nervousness among club cricketers in openly discussing the crisis. “The Tim Paine story came out and there were instantly hundreds of messages on our WhatsApp group but there has been virtually no mention of Azeem,” said one club cricketer. “That’s not because people aren’t interested – it’s because they don’t want to say the wrong thing. But it has forced people to think about their own past behaviour and question whether they have ever done anything that made someone feel uncomfortable. And that has to be a positive thing.”

The parents

Among the most striking moments during Rafiq’s testimony was his response to the idea of letting his children play cricket. “I wouldn’t want my son or daughter to be in pain,” he said.

Parents with experience of two different counties have separately told Telegraph Sport of a fear that children from south Asian backgrounds are not getting the same opportunities when selections are made. An ECB report in 2018 found that, while people of south Asian heritage made up a third of recreational cricketers, their representation plummeted to just four per cent in the county game.  

Basharat Hussain, chair of the Quaid e Azam Premier and Dewsbury District Cricket Leagues, said that the challenge now was to restore confidence. “Some of the community members may think because of the colour of their skin it determines whether they make some of these county junior teams,” he said. “Will my child get the same opportunities as any other person from any other community? Those are the difficult questions that will be asked.”