He might be suspended by the ECB for his racist and sexist tweets as a teenager but Ollie Robinson has full support of the England team and has accepted his apology, veteran pacer James Anderson said on Tuesday (June 8).

ECB suspended Robinson, who made his Test debut against New Zealand at Lord’s last week, pending an investigation into his offensive posts dating back to 2012-13, for which the fast bowler has already tendered an unconditional public apology.

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During an interaction with the British media, Anderson was asked whether Robinson’s apology has been accepted or some players still have issues and the former replied: “No, I think it’s been accepted.”

“He stood up in front of the group and apologised and you could see how sincere he was and upset he was, and I think as a group we appreciate that he is a different person now. He’s done a lot of maturing and growing since then, and he’s got the full support of the team.”

Anderson also opened up about the impact of player’s suspension on the team.

“Well yeah, I think it’s a… you know it is a difficult time. I think as players we’re trying to learn from this really.

“We realise that it’s important to try and get educated around these issues, which we’re continuing to do with the ECB and the PCA (Professional Cricketers’ Association) we’ve already been doing workshops before this series to try and help improve ourselves as people basically, to try and make sure that this sort of thing doesn’t happen.”

After the first Test against New Zealand, England skipper Joe Root condemned Robinson’s unacceptable tweets from years ago but 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.

“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.”

England’s political class also weighed in on the issue as Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden called ECB’s decision “over the top” while country’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson agreed with him.

(With PTI inputs)