ECB’s ridiculous move to ban Robinson will not help anti-racism
“Did you see Ollie Robinson’s old tweets?” It was a question I heard many times over a weekend spent playing cricket. Almost every conversation about the subject then proceeded along the same lines. “Oh, yeah, aren’t they grim? How embarrassing.” On learning that comments dating back to his teenage days which included racist and sexist slurs had been uncovered by the Mail Online, the 27-year-old fast bowler was said to be “devastated, embarrassed and very remorseful” by the head coach Chris Silverwood. His apology, conveyed via a written statement read out to camera, was well done and appeared heartfelt.
The idea that he might face a suspension from the game altogether did not cross my mind. Today, the sport’s managing body in this country, the ECB (England and Wales Cricket Board) has suspended Robinson from all international cricket until disciplinary proceedings are concluded. In practice, that will mean he misses the next Test (and final match of the series) against New Zealand.
Oliver Dowden, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, tweeted in response: “Ollie Robinson’s tweets were offensive and wrong.” He continued: “They are also a decade old and written by a teenager. The teenager is now a man and has rightly apologised. The ECB has gone over the top by suspending him and should think again.” In an echo of the Super League controversy, when the government put on a united front in making political capital from a mooted reorganisation of club football, Boris Johnson is said to approve of Dowden’s view.
My own view is that sportsmen shouldn’t only be seen as role models because they are said to be “nice.” Children don’t need to be molly coddled. My favourite cricketer as a boy was the bowler Simon Jones. I didn’t know whether he was nice or not but I loved his glowering intensity on the field, his beautiful snappy action, the sheer pace he flung the ball down at. Young people and adults often watch sport for the spectacle and because to sustain the spectacle men and women are required to put themselves under extreme psychological and physical pressure. Their virtues and sins are their own business.
However, anyone who knows the history of cricket well will be familiar with the game’s stark history of racial tension and hatred. Racism ranges from the coded and patronising, West Indies sides after the war were routinely labelled “Calypso cricketers,” to the vicious and overt – touring sides experienced vile racism from the stands and the press. Decades on, the latter is thankfully rarer than it used to be, although it still subsists. Racist comments delivered from the stands are met with lifetime bans for offending fans.
The contemporary story of cricket is as intertwined with race and ethnicity as it always has been. Asian cricketers predominate in the club game – very few turn professional. Young men of Caribbean heritage tend to be drawn to football rather than cricket. The ECB is right to be concerned about race – cricket is historically a genuinely national sport in England, played in communities both great and small up and down the country. Renewing that heritage requires the right know-how going into the right parts of the community game.
The treatment meted out to Ollie Robinson will not help that effort. Of course, no cricketer has a right to play for England. Alex Hales is one of the world’s best short-form batsmen. But he can’t get in the England ODI team for love or money because the captain Eoin Morgan has not forgiven him for a breach of trust after a failed drugs test. Kevin Pietersen retired earlier than he might have done because, according to the ECB, he didn’t pull “in the same direction” as the rest of the team. But there doesn’t seem to be any suggestion that either Robinson’s captain or coach are unhappy with him or believe that his apology was not sincere or would prove damaging to team discipline.
In reality, the ECB, desperate to be seen to be doing something about its agenda on racism in the sport, has engaged in an epic arse-covering exercise. Why didn’t the management ask him to vet his social media? Any figure new to the public eye should be informed that embarrassing social media histories are seen as fair game and are liable to be dredged up by eager hacks.
The ECB now seems to be in the business of creating precisely the conditions for stagnation on this issue it portents to be deconstructing. An anti-racism worth its salt will not flourish in this mean-spirited atmosphere.