Cricket: Ollie Robinson got full support of England team, says James Anderson

A lot has been said and written since England pacer Ollie Robinson was suspended by the ECB from international cricket for his controversial historical tweets. Veteran England pacer James Anderson has now opined on the whole matter as he said that the England team has unanimously accepted Robinson’s heartfelt apology during the first Test against New Zealand, which was also his debut Test for England.

Robinson’s Test debut, where he picked a match-haul of seven wickets, was marred by controversy as his racist and sexist tweets from nine years ago resurfaced on social media platform Twitter. Robinson was further suspended from international cricket by ECB for his offensive tweets dating back to 2012-13, for which he tendered a heartfelt apology.

“No, I think it’s been accepted.He stood up in front of the group and apologised and you could see how sincere he was and upset he was, and I think as a group we appreciate that he is a different person now. He’s done a lot of maturing and growing since then, and he’s got the full support of the team,” Anderson told reporters.

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The UK’s political class including Prime Minister Boris Johnson also weighed in on the matter while urging the ECB to reconsider the decision of suspending the pacer for something he did as a teenager.

When asked about the impact of Robinson’s suspension on the team, the veteran said: “Well yeah, I think it’s a you know it is a difficult time. I think as players we’re trying to learn from this really. We realise that it’s important to try and get educated around these issues, which we’re continuing to do with the ECB and the PCA (Professional Cricketers’ Association) we’ve already been doing workshops before this series to try and help improve ourselves as people basically, to try and make sure that this sort of thing doesn’t happen.”

At the close of Day 1 at Lord’s, the 27-year-old Robinson apologised on camera as he said he was going through a difficult patch in his life when he posted those tweets as an 18-year-old.

“I want to make it clear that I’m not racist and I’m not sexist,” Robinson had said.

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“I deeply regret my actions, and I am ashamed of making such remarks. I was thoughtless and irresponsible, and regardless of my state of mind at the time, my actions were inexcusable.

Since that period, I have matured as a person and fully regret the tweets.”

However, due to the suspension, Robinson will not be available for the second Test against New Zealand which begins at Edgbaston on Thursday.