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England pacer James Anderson on Tuesday said his side will learn from the Ollie Robinson controversy and he also addressed how the past one week was really difficult for every member of the squad.
Robinson was on Sunday suspended from all international cricket pending the outcome of a disciplinary investigation following the tweets he posted in 2012 and 2013. United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Sports Minister Olivier Dowden criticised the ECB for suspending Robinson from international cricket over his tweets which were sent out by him during his teenage days. "It is a difficult time. As players, we are trying to learn from this. We realise it is important to try and educate around these issues, which we are continuing to with the ECB and the PCA. We have already been doing workshops before this series to try and help improve ourselves as people, basically, to try and make sure this sort of thing doesn't happen," Sky Sports quoted Anderson as saying. When asked whether Robinson's apology was accepted in the dressing room, Anderson said: "It has been accepted. He stood up in front of the group and apologised, and you could see how sincere he was and how upset he was." "As a group, we appreciate that he is a different person now. He has done a lot of maturing and growing since then and he's got the full support of the team. He has definitely changed as a person and is going to improve, learn from this," he added. One more cricketer from the England team has come under the scanner for his allegedly racist remarks on Twitter post pacer Ollie Robinson's suspension for similar reason. According to a report in ESPNcricinfo, Wisden.com published the old tweets from another unnamed cricketer within the current England set-up. The report further states that the cricketer was aged less than 16 at the time he posted the tweets. "I remember being that age. You do make mistakes. You are very young and inexperienced but, as people, we have just got to try and get better, improve and make sure that this sort of thing does not happen - that people are aware it is unacceptable," said Anderson. "It does not matter how old you are. You can never know too much. I think it is really important that we keep doing this, keep buying into this, because it is really important for our game - we want it to be an inclusive one," he added. An old historical tweet of Anderson has also been circulating on social media from the past 24 hours but he said that he has changed as a person in the last decade. "It is something we are definitely going to have to look at (historic social media posts). But if we educate well enough, that language and those tweets do not go out in the first place," said Anderson. "The historical stuff, for me, it was 10, 11 years ago. I have certainly changed as a person since then. That is the difficulty; things do change and you do make mistakes," he added. The first Test between England and New Zealand ended as a draw. Both teams will now lock horns in the second Test, beginning Thursday at Edgbaston. (ANI)
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