England players anxious about old tweets but committed to improving, says James Anderson

Legendary pacer James Anderson has admitted that the England cricketers are “feeling anxious” about their old tweets being deemed inappropriate, resulting in action against them. However, Anderson said that the players were committed to “improving as people”. The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has vowed to take “relevant and appropriate action”, following public outcry and questions raised publicly about historical tweets from numerous England players.

“I guess we do feel anxious,” said Anderson in an interaction with reporters as quoted by cricket.com.au.

“If there are any tweets from years ago we do have to look at that and again learn from this and try to be better in the future, try to make sure we know it’s unacceptable to use these sorts of phrases and language. It is a difficult time. As players we are trying to learn from this. We realise it’s important to try to get educated around these issues, which we continue to do with the ECB and the PCA (Professional Cricketers’ Association). We had already been doing workshops before this series, basically to improve ourselves as people. It doesn’t matter how old you are, you can never know too much. It’s really important we keep doing this, keep buying into this, because it’s hugely important to make our game as inclusive as possible,” he added.

“No place for discrimination”

Fast bowler Ollie Robinson was sidelined for England’s second Test against New Zealand, following old tweets that came to light last week when he made his debut at Lord’s.

“Since we were alerted to offensive tweets last week, a number of historical social media posts by other individuals have been questioned publicly as well. There is no place for discrimination in our sport, and we are committed to taking relevant and appropriate action where required,” an ECB spokesperson said.

“Given the concerns which have been raised are clearly now broader than a single case, the ECB board will discuss how we deal with issues over historical social media material in a timely and appropriate manner. Each case will be considered on an individual basis, looking at all the facts,” he added.