The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) assured it will take ‘relevant and appropriate action’ after old tweets from Eoin Morgan and Jos Buttler were ‘questioned publicly’. ECB’s statement came after the suspension of Ollie Robinson from all forms of international cricket pending an investigation into his racist and sexist tweets posted in 2012 and 2013.
As per a report in The Telegraph, Morgan and Buttler mocked the Indian usage of the word ‘Sir’. Buttler deleted his tweets, but only after they were widely circulated on social media. They confirm his usage of the word ‘Sir’ and broken English, imitating Indians in a not-too-respectable manner.
Morgan had used the word ‘Sir’ while lauding Buttler’s 55-ball 94 in an Indian Premier League (IPL) encounter on 18 May, 2018. Brendon McCullum, head coach of the Kolkata Knight Riders now, too, quote-tweeted Morgan, adding ‘@josbuttler Sir, you play very good Opening batting,’
James Anderson is also under scrutiny for a homophobic tweet addressed at Stuart Broad in 2010. Anderson, now 38, wrote: ‘I saw Broady’s new haircut for the first time today. Not sure about it. Thought he looked like a 15 yr old lesbian!’
Speaking to the Daily Mail on 8 June, Anderson admitted to his error: ‘For me, it’s 10-11 years ago. I’ve certainly changed as a person. And I think that’s the difficulty, things do change, you do make mistakes.’
BBC quoted an ECB spokesperson saying: ‘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.’