The former chairman of Yorkshire County Cricket Club Roger Hutton will not be present at the ECB racism hearing.
The ECB's Discipline Commission said the hearing would take place in public from November 28 and it will now go ahead without Hutton in attendance. He said it was because the process was "unfair" and he lacked "confidence" in the national governing body.
Yorkshire CCC hit the headlines in 2020 following Azeem Rafiq's allegations of racism. Following his claims, the club launched an investigation and just seven of the 43 allegations made were upheld by an independent panel a year later. But the panel’s findings were not published and nobody was punished as a result.
The ECB, meanwhile, charged Yorkshire and seven individuals following Rafiq's allegations of racism at the club, and he pushed for the subsequent hearing to be made public, with his request being granted.
However, Hutton has called for disciplinary proceedings to be staged privately. In a letter to the cricket county, which has been seen by the BBC , Hutton said he was "pleased to provide the club with all information of relevance".
However, he added: "After careful consideration, I will not be taking part in the Yorkshire statement or any other aspects of the panel.
"I simply do not have confidence in the ECB, its governance or its agenda and who notably escape all scrutiny themselves.
"Its own conduct is not included within the scope of inquiry - this underlines the clearly unfair and biased ECB inquiry and serves only to reinforce the reluctance of cricket to take seriously racism in the game."
An ECB spokesperson said in response: "This has been a thorough and extensive investigation into allegations of racism and the way they were handled by Yorkshire CCC, and we look forward to the case being heard by the Cricket Discipline Commission."
Hutton had apologised "unreservedly" to Rafiq over Yorkshire's handling of the scandal and left his post in November 2021.
