It is tempting to see no winners but ECB’s judgment is a victory for Rafiq

This saga is an observation porthole into English cricket and, beyond that, Yorkshire CCC and wider society

Looking back at the footage now, Trent Bridge, 22 June 2009, the players of Yorkshire CCC about to walk out on to the field to face Nottinghamshire in the late evening sunshine, it is hard not to feel a sense of English cricket’s own Zapruder film being spliced into place. Every act, every cutaway, every pause, every edit seems undercut by a sense of historical weight, the smiles, the backslaps, the grassy knoll, the man smoking by the fence, details that will be pored over by endless sets of eyes, meshed and overlaid into their own competing Warren Commissions.

Here is Michael Vaughan shaking hands, Jacques Rudolph frowning, Azeem Rafiq, playing just his second T20 game, beaming with nervous energy, with that sense throughout of something happening, or not happening, or half happening just out of sight.

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