Players' Social Media History Could Be Reviewed Before Selection In Future, Says England's Batting Coach Thorpe
England's batting coach Graham Thorpe has said that the board could start reviewing a player's social media history before selecting him/her in the national team after fast bowler Ollie Robinson's old racist and sexist tweets went viral on the day he made his test debut against New Zealand.
“It’s clearly something that might need to be looked at so that a day like yesterday doesn’t happen,” Thorpe was quoted as saying by ‘BBC’.
The fast bowler issued a public apology regretting and embarrassed of his actions as an 18-year-old.
“I am embarrassed by the racist and sexist tweets that I posted over eight years ago which have today become public. I want to make it clear that I’m not racist and I’m not sexist. I deeply regret my actions and I am ashamed of making such remarks,” Robinson said.
Thorpe revealed that Robinson, who picked four wickets in the first innings, also apologized to the whole squad in the dressing room and showed a lot of character to come out and perform.
“In our dressing room, we had to support him. It was a tough day for him yesterday. He had to say sorry to the dressing room and sorry to the world. From that perspective, it was very hard for him, but he knows he’s made a mistake.”
“For whatever he has done, it’s still not easy to go back out and perform. He showed good character and he had to be resilient. We were really pleased. His level of performance was exceptional,” said Thorpe.