England pacer Jofra Archer received major abuse, some of it was targetted on his race, on social media after it was revealed that he had broken the bio-secure bubble of the team after visiting his flat on way to the venue of the second Test match against West Indies.
England lost the first Test at Southampton and while the teams moved to Old Trafford, Manchester for the remaining two games, Archer took a detour to his home, breaking safety protocols. He had to be dropped from the second Test match as a precaution and was tested for COVID-19.
This led to him receiving terrible messages on Twitter and other social media outlets, given that his misstep could have cost the England board millions of pounds if the series had to be called off.
He has received support from his teammates and the board after he acknowledged that what he did was wrong and Moeen Ali, England’s white-ball vice-captain revealed that Archer received some horrendous messages in the last two weeks.
In his column for The Guardian on Wednesday, Moeen Ali wrote, “He (Jofra Archer) is a very active person on social media and while I personally moved away from it a while back, I would never tell anyone to do the same. But it has to be said, I have seen some of the messages he has received and they are absolutely horrendous.”
Archer gave rebuttals to some negative comments from users. When a user told him to “not bring racism into everything”, he replied: “Come back when you can use your real name and real display picture.”
Archer has taken the criticism as well as can be, Ali wrote in his column while saying that social media needs to have some sort of accountability.
“This isn’t about being thick-skinned. No one should have to tolerate racism. And I think people need calling out here. Maybe they should make it mandatory that social media accounts have names and faces on them. We should know who is saying these things,” Ali wrote, calling Archer a ‘potential superstar’ and a ‘fast learner’.
