London, Jun 12 (IANS): The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has criticised claims made by former Yorkshire chairman Colin Graves for saying incidents of racism at the county club were "banter" in nature.

Graves created controversy when he said to Sky Sports News that he never witnessed racism during his time at the club from 2012 to 2015. Graves' first stint as chairman at Yorkshire coincided with former player Azeem Rafiq's time at the club, from which the club has now admitted they failed to address the issues of racism and usage of discriminatory language.

"We are disappointed to see the comments made by Colin Graves on the historical racist issues at Yorkshire County Cricket Club. We must never again hear of accounts like Azeem Rafiq's, where racist slurs are used as part of normalised everyday language."

"These events, along with many issues experienced by Azeem and others during their time at Yorkshire have been upheld more than once, including during proceedings overseen by the Cricket Discipline Committee."

"We vehemently disagree that this is 'just banter' and believe that any debate in that regard should stop immediately. Racism isn't banter. Yorkshire is of huge importance to cricket in England and Wales with a deep history and an ability to inspire and connect all cricket fans.

"They are currently working hard to resolve their financial and cultural challenges and the club, and its new management, have our full support,'' said the ECB in its statement.

In the interview, Graves said racism allegations were never brought to him during his time as chairman at Yorkshire. "When I was chairman of the club when some of these allegations were made, I can tell you now, nothing was brought up within the club. And I ran the club on an open-door basis as chairman, players could come and see me if they had issues and they did so on a regular basis."

"I met the players twice a year, took them out for dinner, met them around the ground, knew a lot of the families. We had management meetings in the club every Monday we had board meetings every six weeks. Nothing was ever brought up on the table about any racism allegations whatsoever."

Graves was aiming to return as Yorkshire chairman but withdrew from the election last week. Asked specifically if he had ever witnessed racism during his time as Yorkshire chairman, Graves said, "None whatsoever, from anybody at any level. Nothing."