[Cricket] Ollie Robinson suspended by ECB

[Sid in the Sharknado]

I don't think so , James Anderson appears to have a contract with the ECB but Robinson doesn't , currently on salary with SCCC and only being payed appearance fees for playing for England

https://www.ecb.co.uk/england/men/n...land-mens-central-contracts-for-202021-season

The ECB pay Robinson's match fee, they are entitled to not pick him and so not pay that fee if they deem his behaviour unacceptable.

Given the amount of money the ECB give all the counties, including Sussex, they indirectly pay for a large chunk of his county wage, but that's not directly relevant.

 

[Sid in the Sharknado]

This is true, and interestingly one cricketer made inappropriate comments on social media while under contract with the ECB as an England player representing their country, while another made inappropriate social posts 9 years in the past before they were even a professional cricketer.

If they've suspended Robinson pending investigation, then I cannot see how they cannot also be suspending Anderson, Buttler and Morgan pending the same investigations. The results may well mean different punishments or no punishments for whatever is deemed more inappropriate or offensive, but you cannot come up with a rule for one, then not apply it to others.

I don't like any of the tweets. I don't like what Robinson has said. None of what I've posted on this thread is in defence of Robinson or any other player. For me this is about PR damage limitation exercise made on the hoof that uses a stance against a player to look like the ECB has a tough policy and line. Not acting on the other tweets basically says we decide in a back room who does and doesn't face punishment, and it's done without policy direction, specific criteria or established conditions. Shambles.

The ECB is, in general, a deeply inadequate organisation run by idiots.

Very obviously, they should review the social media posts of anybody they select to play for any of the England teams, before they take the field.

Robinson is ultimately responsible for tweets that he wrote, and that were visible to other people on his account long after he originally wrote them. Had he written those tweets now, there is no question that he would be nowhere near the England side and probably nowhere near the Sussex team either. As it is, the fact that he is currently suspended is a recognition that the posts were written a long time ago and probably don't represent his current character.

While recognising that some people may be personally offended by Anderson's tweet, the general reaction shows that I'm not alone in thinking that it's nowhere near as offensive as those written by Robinson. Given there's no suggestion that Anderson has latent homophobic views it doesn't make any sense to suspend him. Neither Morgan or Buttler are in the squad to play against New Zealand, so they can't be suspended.

Is the ECB utterly incompetent and struggling to deal with a situation that should never have existed? Yes.
Having got to this point, is there anything else they could realistically do that is clearly better? No.

 

[Bry Nylon]

Had he written those tweets now, there is no question that he would be nowhere near the England side and probably nowhere near the Sussex team either.

But on the plus side, he'd probably be the official songwriter for the Football Association.

 

[carlzeiss]

The ECB pay Robinson's match fee, they are entitled to not pick him and so not pay that fee if they deem his behaviour unacceptable.

Given the amount of money the ECB give all the counties, including Sussex, they indirectly pay for a large chunk of his county wage, but that's not directly relevant.

Not sure how the ECB can be 100% sure that none of the players selected have made racist or misogynistic comments in the past though . Shirley the only solution is to allow only BAME women that are qualified to play for England to represent out country . That way we can all enjoy international cricket again without having to worry about past posts . We may well loose but at least we can loose with pride .

 

[Mo Gosfield]

Yeah agreed.
The problem with zero-tolerance is you seemingly have to take irony/banter/sick humour/casual racism/hate speech and treat them all as the same thing.

It wasn't too long ago when describing something as "gay" was a fairly frequent way to describe something which was weak or pathetic.
I used the expression myself (probably still do).
I considered it as a fairly ironic expression and therefore quite good-natured and certainly not homophobic.
However it was also used in exactly the same way by people who were homophobic.

Anderson's tweet is certainly not something I think he said because of a deep held hatred of the lbgtq community.

It's these nuances which get lost in these matters.

The word ' gay ' has always meant happy and carefree, before it was hijacked by the homosexual community who wanted a softer identity. Defined three ways in the OED as.....
1) Full of mirth. Lighthearted. Carefree. Sportive. Airy. Offhand.
2) Showy. Brilliant. Bright-Coloured. Finely dressed or decorated.
3) Dissolute. Immoral. Homosexual.

Examples....." We'll have a gay old time " ( The Flinstones )...." Where the people are so gay " ( Sam Cooke....Twistin the Night Away ).... " Just laughing and gay like a clown " ( The Platters....The Great Pretender )...." I'm strummin on my gay guitar " ( Bob Dylan....Standing in the Doorway )..." I was cheerful, bright and gay " ( Gilbert O'Sullivan....Alone again..Naturally )......and many more.

It was a lovely word and became quite a popular name...traditionally ' Gay ' for men ( as in Gay Kindersley...racehorse trainer ) and ' Gaye ' for women ( as in Clifford T Ward's song...' Gaye ' )

Your definition is clearly a generational ' street ' expression, similar to how ' cool ' took on another completely different meaning. Its usage could be interpreted as suggesting that the homosexual community is weak and pathetic, surely not the intention. When I was growing up there were also some rather unfortunate words used in the context of weak and pathetic that don't bear repeating now.

 

[mejonaNO12 aka riskit]

Not sure how the ECB can be 100% sure that none of the players selected have made racist or misogynistic comments in the past though . Shirley the only solution is to allow only BAME women that are qualified to play for England to represent out country . .

BAME women can also make racist or misogynistic comments.

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

The word ' gay ' has always meant happy and carefree, before it was hijacked by the homosexual community who wanted a softer identity. Defined three ways in the OED as.....
1) Full of mirth. Lighthearted. Carefree. Sportive. Airy. Offhand.
2) Showy. Brilliant. Bright-Coloured. Finely dressed or decorated.
3) Dissolute. Immoral. Homosexual.

Examples....." We'll have a gay old time " ( The Flinstones )...." Where the people are so gay " ( Sam Cooke....Twistin the Night Away ).... " Just laughing and gay like a clown " ( The Platters....The Great Pretender )...." I'm strummin on my gay guitar " ( Bob Dylan....Standing in the Doorway )..." I was cheerful, bright and gay " ( Gilbert O'Sullivan....Alone again..Naturally )......and many more.

It was a lovely word and became quite a popular name...traditionally ' Gay ' for men ( as in Gay Kindersley...racehorse trainer ) and ' Gaye ' for women ( as in Clifford T Ward's song...' Gaye ' )

Your definition is clearly a generational ' street ' expression, similar to how ' cool ' took on another completely different meaning. Its usage could be interpreted as suggesting that the homosexual community is weak and pathetic, surely not the intention. When I was growing up there were also some rather unfortunate words used in the context of weak and pathetic that don't bear repeating now.

I would add that generations of teenagers give new meanings to words. Examples like ‘sick’ and ‘gay’ where the meaning can be completely different to the perception of most people. It’s a moving target. That doesn’t mean people should have carte blanche to cause offense on the internet. Quite the opposite. It does though make the cherry picking of stuff from 10 years ago incredibly problematic. It doesn’t solve the problem it is purporting to solve so I can only conclude that this is more about a need to be seen to be doing something in what many people seem to see as some sort of war. Ollie is just collateral damage.

 

[Gwylan]

The word ' gay ' has always meant happy and carefree, before it was hijacked by the homosexual community who wanted a softer identity. Defined three ways in the OED as.....
1) Full of mirth. Lighthearted. Carefree. Sportive. Airy. Offhand.
2) Showy. Brilliant. Bright-Coloured. Finely dressed or decorated.
3) Dissolute. Immoral. Homosexual.

This is a load of old bollocks. For a start, there are 18 definitions of 'gay' in the OED, an indication of its many shifts in meaning and clearly an indiction that it hasn't "always" meant happy and carefree (for example, in the 19th century a gay woman was a prostitute).

Secondly, a great many words change their meaning. Just off the top of my head, nice meant ignorant, quick meant alive, brave meant good and I'm sure there are hundreds more. It can happen quickly, look at the way that infer has changed meaning, within my lifetime. Gay has meant homosexual for nearly a hundred years, within the lifetime of everyone on NSC (I'm also not sure that it was adopted by the homosexual community, given the pejorative way it was applied to woman but that's just my guess).

It's a bit of a deviation from the main topic but it's important to place words in some sort of context.

As to the wider point about Robinson's actions, I think Sid has summed it up well. The ECB has made a complete horlicks of this situation (which TBH is par for the course, the ECB is the most incompently run sports organisation in the country, some achievement when it's up against the FA and the RFU) but having failed to act to nip this in the bud, I don't see how it could have reacted differently.

 

[Moshe Gariani]

Examples....." We'll have a gay old time " ( The Flinstones )...." Where the people are so gay " ( Sam Cooke....Twistin the Night Away ).... " Just laughing and gay like a clown " ( The Platters....The Great Pretender )...." I'm strummin on my gay guitar " ( Bob Dylan....Standing in the Doorway )..." I was cheerful, bright and gay " ( Gilbert O'Sullivan....Alone again..Naturally )......and many more.

A lot of strange songs to illustrate this point on NSC...

 

[A1X]

[tweet]1402982926938116099[/tweet]

"Ollie Robinson will not be part of the Sussex Sharks squad for the team’s opening two Vitality Blast fixtures against Gloucestershire and Hampshire Hawks on Friday and Saturday evenings. After a difficult week, Ollie has decided to take a short break from the game to spend time with his young family."

 

[The Wizard]

Bullied out of your life’s hard work because of comments made when you weren’t even an adult.

It’s just dreadful really, hopefully people are getting around him as this must be dreadful for a persons mental health, social media is truly one of the most toxic and divisive things of the 21st century.

 

[Gwylan]

Sounds like Sussex are going to look after him

 

[Audax]

Absolutely ridiculous. In 2021 we are told we must 'educate' ourselves, so how come 8 year old tweets from someone who was 18 - and has not posted anything similar since then suggesting he is a changed character is being punished so harshly?

Late response - but when looking at it from the angle of setting an example for *today's* teenagers, I think the action the ECB have taken is justified. What they need to do next is back that up by sending Ollie out to do community service educating today's teens about how their current social media behaviour can come back to haunt them in the future.

 

[Eeyore]

[tweet]1402982926938116099[/tweet]

"Ollie Robinson will not be part of the Sussex Sharks squad for the team’s opening two Vitality Blast fixtures against Gloucestershire and Hampshire Hawks on Friday and Saturday evenings. After a difficult week, Ollie has decided to take a short break from the game to spend time with his young family."

Very good statement that.

 

[cunning fergus]

Late response - but when looking at it from the angle of setting an example for *today's* teenagers, I think the action the ECB have taken is justified. What they need to do next is back that up by sending Ollie out to do community service educating today's teens about how their current social media behaviour can come back to haunt them in the future.

Yes, this kind approach to helping people to confront the errors of their historical ways is something we have witnessed before........

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session

I wonder how long till the enthusiasts of this kind of approach will be suggesting the establishment of educational camps?

Hasta la Victoria siempere!

 

[cunning fergus]

Bullied out of your life’s hard work because of comments made when you weren’t even an adult.

It’s just dreadful really, hopefully people are getting around him as this must be dreadful for a persons mental health, social media is truly one of the most toxic and divisive things of the 21st century.

If this is the precedent for historical actions of teenagers then I guess this is bad news for Shamima Begum’s legal team.

Looks like the voting age will need to at least stay at 18, although I note a parliamentary committee yesterday recommended raising the smoking age to 21. Maybe disenfranchisement for 18 -21 year olds is on its way too?

 

[cjd]

I'm very pleased to see that Sussex CCC will add no further penalties to Ollie Robinson whatever the ECB decide. Also he retains the support of his team mates.


Far better than the witch hunt, that has been going on here.

 

[goldstone]

What do you believe they are "out of order" in doing, exactly? He has not been punished, the current suspension is to allow an investigation to take place like that which would happen in basically any workplace in the country.

Investigation into what? He's admitted the offence and apologised. What more is there to investigate? Except who was the piece of shyte who made the "offending" tweets public.

 

[LamieRobertson]

Late response - but when looking at it from the angle of setting an example for *today's* teenagers, I think the action the ECB have taken is justified. What they need to do next is back that up by sending Ollie out to do community service educating today's teens about how their current social media behaviour can come back to haunt them in the future.

If you take that line then you might as well send out half the country for community service ...action taken by ECB totally ridiculous

 

[A1X]

Investigation into what? He's admitted the offence and apologised. What more is there to investigate? Except who was the piece of shyte who made the "offending" tweets public.

The investigation is to establish what contract he was subject to at the time and what the provisions are under that for punishing what he did, and whether if he wasn't under contract what ECB measures he would be subjected to. That's what the investigation is covering.