IN A ‘breaking story’ on BBC News yesterday, England cricket captain Joe Root said that the side have to face up to some ‘ugly truths’ regarding historic ‘racist’ and ‘sexist’ tweets by some players.
It was inevitable, after Ollie Robinson was hauled before the court of virtue, that the ECB would start looking over past tweets and posts by England players, apart from the BAME players of course, and make an example of their current crop to appease a tiny minority of people who probably don’t even watch or play cricket.
Yesterday it was revealed that they were reviewing the posts of several players including the one-day captain Eoin Morgan, his vice captain Jos Buttler, and England’s leading wicket-taker and all-round legend James Anderson. The research by the cricketing site Wisden.com has been met with consternation by the cricketing authorities but been roundly blasted by fans who are unconcerned by posts put out when players were in their adolescence.
Anderson’s comment more than ten years ago was in reference to team-mate Stuart Broad: ‘I saw Broady’s haircut for the first time today. Not sure about it. Thought it made him look like a 15 yr old lesbian.’
Of course, the outcry was that he was obviously homophobic and Anderson was forced to apologise, saying ‘We do have to look at that and again learn from this and be better in the future.’
Why?! All of us, at some point, will have said things in our younger years that the perpetually offended would get up in arms about. You can’t apologise for everything and as anyone in this day and age knows, an apology isn’t always enough. Michael Carberry, a mediocre former player, said that if it was up to him, ‘Robinson wouldn’t be playing test cricket . . . I don’t believe this is a problem where you can rehabilitate someone.’ Charming.
Buttler and Morgan’s messages are so inoffensive that I have no idea why they were even brought to light in the first place.
Here they are. Buttler to Alex Hales from August 2017: ‘Well done on double 100 much beauty batting you are on fire sir.’ Morgan and Brendon McCullum to Buttler the following May, the former commenting: ‘Sir you’re my favourite batsman’ and McCullum adding: ‘Sir, you play very good Opening batting.’
I’m at an absolute loss as to why those messages were offensive, and perhaps someone under the line can explain, but the lunacy of what has come to light over the last week has, at least, opened many cricket fans eyes to the craziness of the Left, an insanity which has spread to this beautiful game.
I have a strong feeling that when the Second Test starts, there’ll be a lot of support in the crowd for these players and a lot of anger directed at the woke idiots behind this, including those who have jumped the bandwagon, like Michael Vaughan, Michael Carberry, Mark Ramprakash and Joe Root, the man who should be defending his players but who has taken the easiest route.
