A few days after English pacer Ollie Robinson was reprimanded by England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) for his old “racist and sexist” tweets, legendary English cricketer James Anderson is in the dock over one of his old tweets in which he had called fellow seamer Stuart Broad a ’15-year-old lesbian’.
A tweet put out by veteran fast bowler James Anderson mocking his Test match teammate Stuart Broad on February 20, 2010, has now come under ECB’s scanner. In his tweet, James Anderson had said that Stuart Broad “looked like a 15 yr old lesbian!” in his new haircut.
“I saw Broady’s new haircut for the first time today. Not sure about it. Thought he looked like a 15 yr old lesbian!,” the tweet from February 2010 read.
The fast bowler seems to have deleted the tweet in the wake of the recent fallout over Robinson’s messages. It is not clear when the tweet was taken down.
James Anderson has reacted to the latest controversy saying, “For me, it’s 10-11 years ago, I’ve certainly changed as a person. I think that’s the difficulty, things do change, you do make mistakes. It’s something that we’re definitely going to have to look at.”
“If there are any tweets from years ago, we do have to look at that and again learn from this and be better in the future, try and make sure we know it’s unacceptable to use these sorts of phrases and language.”
Anderson, who is the highest wicket taker for England in tests, said players were also attending workshops.
The fast bowler said, “It’s a difficult time. As players, we’re trying to learn from this, really. We’ve realised 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).”
English Cricket rocked by controversy over players’ historical tweets
Meanwhile, the ECB has pledged to take “relevant and appropriate action” as more historical tweets put out players that are allegedly offensive in nature continue to emerge. Last week, old tweets put out by English debutant Ollie Anderson surfaced, creating a massive furore on the internet.
Robinson is currently facing an ECB investigation into “racist and sexist tweets” he posted in 2012 and 2013, drawing attention away from a strong international debut against New Zealand.
Not just Robinson, England stars Jos Buttler and Eoin Morgan have also found themselves in similar controversies for certain old tweets.
The two English players are also allegedly under investigation from the ECB, for mocking the Indians and their elocution of English. After batsman Alex Hales struck a ton, Buttler tweeted a congratulatory message for Hales and wrote, “much beauty batting you are on fire, sir.”
On the other hand, England ODI captain Eoin Morgan had mocked Indians in his tweet saying Buttler is his favourite batsman.
All three players are under ECB’s investigation over their previous ‘racist’ tweets.