The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has pledged to take “relevant and appropriate action” after further historical offensive tweets from England players surfaced. The announcement comes days after Ollie Robinson was suspended over racist and sexist tweets from 2012 and 2013.
Jimmy Anderson, who is set to become England’s most capped Test player, faced scrutiny over a 2010 tweet about Stuart Broad. He wrote: “I saw Broady’s new haircut for the first time today. Not sure about it. Thought he looked like a 15 yr old lesbian!” Anderson responded: “For me it’s 10-11 years ago, I’ve certainly changed as a person. And I think that’s the difficulty, things do change, you do make mistakes.”
Eoin Morgan and Jos Buttler were also implicated as historical posts were reportedly uncovered. The ECB stated: “There is no place for discrimination in our sport, and we are committed to taking relevant and appropriate action where required. Given the concerns which have been raised are clearly now broader than a single case, the ECB Board will discuss how we deal with issues over historical social media material.”
Anderson admitted the Robinson saga has caused anxiety within the squad, saying: “If there are any tweets from years ago we do have to look at that and again learn from this and try to be better in the future. It is a difficult time. As players we are trying to learn from this.” He added that Robinson was “sincere” and “upset” when he apologised to the group.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden criticised Robinson’s suspension, but former England batsmen Michael Carberry and Mark Ramprakash condemned their intervention. Anderson said political views were “nothing to do with us as a team”.
