England skipper Joe Root on Monday (June 7) pushed for inclusivity in the country’s cricket set-up after newcomer Ollie Robinson was suspended by ECB for some of his racist and sexist tweets dating back to 2012-13.
ECB took the decision despite Robinson, who made his Test debut against New Zealand at Lord’s last week, tendered an unconditional public apology.
While Root condemned Robinson’s unacceptable tweets from years ago, he also cited that the 27-year-old pacer has shown “genuine remorse”.
“In regards to the stuff that’s happened off the field, it’s not acceptable within our game. We all know that. He addressed the dressing room straightaway. He obviously spoke to you guys and other media outlets straight away, fronted up to it,” Root said after the drawn first Test against New Zealand.
“He showed a lot of remorse from that point onwards. You can see it’s very genuine from how he’s been around the group and the team.”
The captain said he was shocked and didn’t know how to react initially.
“I couldn’t believe them (the tweets), personally. I didn’t really know how to take it on the surface. I think the most important thing is Ollie is part of this dressing room and we had to support him. We had to try and do everything that we could to give him an opportunity to learn and understand he has to do better,” he said.
According to Root, this incident should be a great lesson for one and all within the game.
“I think it’s a great lesson for everyone within our game that we can all do more.
“We all have to keep looking to educate ourselves, trying to better the environment for everyone, trying to be as inclusive as we can, keep making everyone feel comfortable to play what a wonderful sport we have.”
The England cricket team is known for being one of the most diverse in nature and Root wants that structurally.
“It starts with us players at the top of the game. We set out the week with that moment of unity and we’re doing a lot of work behind the cricket that we want to make big change in the game and we want to make it more inclusive, more diverse.
“I think the most important thing is we keep trying to do everything we can to better our sport, that we keep learning and we keep finding ways of making our game as best as we can.”
While Root believes that the matter could have been handled in a better way, he is clear in his viewpoint that this shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
“We can look back about how this could have been handled better, but the fact is it shouldn’t have happened. And if we continue to keep trying to better the game right now, then in years to come this shouldn’t be an issue.
“This shouldn’t be something that happens within cricket. We’ve got to move forward from this, learn from this and do everything we can to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
(With PTI inputs)
