Boris Johnson refers Ollie Robinson's suspension over racist tweets as 'bit harsh'

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has now supported his culture and sports secretary on Monday, June 7, by stating English cricket’s ruling body was too harsh and went over the top by suspending Ollie Robinson immediately from all forms of cricket.

But, if the England Cricket Board (ECB) thought it was the end of the road, then they were wrong as another young English player had posted historic offensive material on social media.

Robinson had a good outing in his debut Test at Lord’s against New Zealand last week as he picked seven wickets in the match. But his off-field activity garnered a lot of attention and negative feedback from experts and critics which made the ECB take such strict action against the 27-year-old pacer. Oliver Dowden on Monday, June 7 urged the ECB to think again over the punishment imposed for Robinson’s racist and sexist tweets when he was a teenager during 2012 and 2013.

The problems don’t seem to end with Robinson as another incident came to light and the ECB were again at it to find the root cause of the matter. The story of the unnamed player too is similar to that of Robinson as he too had posted it while he was just 16 years.

Wisden.com had discovered the offensive tweet, publishing its contents but not revealing the name of the England cricketer.

“It has been brought to our attention that an England player has posted historic offensive material on their social media account,” an ECB statement said.

“We are looking into it and will make a further comment in due course.”

The ECB went a bit over the top by suspending Ollie Robinson feels Oliver Dowden and Boris Johnson

After the first day of play of the Lord’s Test, Robinson had publicly apologized stating how wrong he was in putting out those unwanted remarks back then. Dowden though believed the ECB should not have taken such a drastic step since the 27-year-old pacer is already ashamed of what he has done.

“Ollie Robinson’s tweets were offensive and wrong,” Dowden said. “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.”

Echoing Dowden’s words Johnson also felt there was no need of such harsh punishment.

“As Oliver Dowden set out, these were comments made more than a decade ago written by someone as a teenager and for which they’ve rightly apologised,” said a spokesman for the prime minister.