Robin Das spoke only twice at Inner London Crown Court on Friday — once to confirm his name, once to acknowledge the date he must return. That date is 10 January 2028. The 24-year-old, released on conditional bail, will stand trial on two counts of rape some three years and ten months after the offences are alleged to have taken place in Brixton, south London, in March 2024.
The hearing lasted a matter of minutes. Judge Freya Newbery fixed a five-day trial and offered an explanation that had nothing to do with the case in front of her. “I’m afraid we are all just really under the cosh at the moment,” she said. “We are overwhelmed with new cases and we can’t fit our custody cases within the time limits.”
Das has not entered a plea, and is entitled to the presumption of innocence. He was arrested by the Metropolitan Police in August 2025 and charged on 23 July 2026, following reports of a woman being raped in Brixton 16 months earlier.
Essex confirm the contract has ended
Essex suspended Das when the charges were brought and confirmed after Friday’s hearing that he is no longer employed by the club. In a statement, Essex said his playing contract “ended prior to the conclusion of the 2026 season following his suspension”, and stressed that the decision was separate from the ongoing legal proceedings. The club added that it has “robust safeguarding and disciplinary procedures in place”.
The wording matters. Counties have grown markedly more cautious about the line between employment decisions and live criminal cases, and Essex have framed the end of Das’s contract as a scheduling fact rather than a verdict. In practice, the effect is the same: a player who came through the club’s age-group system and made his senior debut at 18 has left Chelmsford without a professional contract and with a trial date more than a year away.
His final appearance in Essex colours was a modest one. Das played once for the first team in 2026, scoring 29 in a One-Day Cup match against Middlesex on 21 July — two days before he was charged.
A career that never quite took off
Born in Leytonstone on 27 February 2002 to a family with roots in Bangladesh’s Sylhet Division, Das was identified early as one of Essex’s most promising batters. He made 200 not out in an under-16 match in July 2018, and the pathway that followed moved quickly:
- T20 debut for Essex on 20 September 2020, aged 18
- Substitute fielder for England against New Zealand at Lord’s in 2022
- Signed by the Dhaka Dominators for the Bangladesh Premier League in January 2023
- First-class debut against Ireland at Chelmsford on 26 May 2023
The returns never matched the billing. Das finished with a first-class average of 25.15 from nine matches, with a highest score of 132. In List A cricket he averaged 28.75 across 29 games, including one century. His T20 record — 24 matches at 17.94 — was the thinnest of the three.
Those are the numbers of a player still waiting for a breakthrough season at 24, not a settled county batter. Essex’s top order hardened considerably around him, and the One-Day Cup, played alongside the Hundred, had become his main route into the side.
Fifteen months of waiting, and a system under strain
The most striking feature of Friday’s hearing was not the charge but the calendar. Nearly 80,000 criminal cases are waiting to be heard in the Crown Court — more than double the pre-pandemic figure of around 38,000. Over 20,000 have been outstanding for a year or more; roughly 6,000 have waited more than two years. Adult rape cases in the queue stand at 4,086, about 70% higher than two years ago, with an average wait of 423 days and one in three such trials postponed at least once.
Sir Brian Leveson’s review of the criminal courts has identified part of the cause: jury trials now take roughly twice as long as they did in 2000, driven by case complexity and vast volumes of electronic evidence. The Public Accounts Committee has separately accused the government of failing to act with sufficient urgency.
For cricket, the consequences are procedural rather than dramatic. Das’s trial will begin in the English off-season, 15 months from now, by which point he will be 25 and nearly four years removed from the alleged offence. Until then, nothing is resolved — not for the complainant, who has waited since March 2024, and not for the defendant, who remains on conditional bail with his career suspended in the gap.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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