It comes after Ollie Robinson was suspended from international cricket pending an investigation into tweets he sent in 2012/2013.
news.sky.com
This, isn't a good look
Again the question must be asked of how they don't have a whole team of guys furiously nuking their social media. I know Bess has deleted his Twitter, but
everyone has old dodgy posts. Off the top of my head, Buttler and Morgan (derision towards those with English as second language; could be read as racist) and Jimmy (post about Broad's haircut that could be read as homophobic) spring to mind
And it's a rod that England have made for their own backs. By knee-jerking and announcing a disciplinary investigation into tweets from 2012 they've said to every hack out there that this is news and it is fair game. And by not doing due diligence on their employees' socials and not making clear any sort of expectations on this when first calling guys up, they've arguably failed in their duty of care too.
And all of this is with Craig "I can't be racist because I spoke to Azhar Ali" Overton still in the squad. It's baffling and it was avoidable.
Again, I'm by no means excusing casual racism. Probably best to clarify that given the issue at hand.
"Zero tolerance" policies are almost always unhelpful. They do not distinguish between children who bully others and the others who defend themselves. They do not distinguish between the player who probably plagiarised his tweets from Sickipedia (remember how that was a thing) and the player who told a foreign-born batsman to go back to his own country. They don't distinguish between the guy sharing his weed with a mate or the guy selling opiates to the most vulnerable people in society. "Zero tolerance" is just a handy way of assuring people that anyone who is "bad" will be punished. Punished but not educated.
Full credit to Ollie Robinson though, who has remained contrite and dignified throughout, even as his name becomes a political football to be kicked around by those with far more damaging and recent track records of aggressive xenophobia at a minimum. If ever anyone was looking for evidence of a changed and more mature individual, he's given it this week.
If there's one bit of comfort it is this: if the ECB are failing this badly and scapegoating their players, it must be an Ashes year
