How far does the rabbit hole go?
Another day, another row about racist tweets. This time an unnamed 15 year old plus a certain Mr Buttler and Mr Morgan are in the spotlight. From the ECBs perspective, their heads must have dropped when they saw the names of the players involved. It really couldnt be worse. Jos has always been Mr Squeaky Clean and a potential captain in waiting. Meanwhile, Eoin is a captain. Hes the inspirational leader of Englands World Cup winners. Oooops. Punishing Ollie Robinson was one thing. Hes expendable. Hes just a foot soldier whos played one Test match. Punishing these two senior players (and they dont get much more senior) will be an entirely different matter. The ECB are now in an unenviable position where they might have to decide what constitutes racism and what doesnt. And obviously whatever they decide, its bound to infuriate a huge number of people. Theyll be damned if they do punish these players and damned if they dont. Personally I dont want to get into a debate about whether Buttlers tweets were offensive or not. Im insanely busy at the moment and I simply dont have the time to nail my colours to any particular mast and argue a cause. Im also acutely aware that, as a middle class white guy whos fortunately never suffered racism, I simply dont feel qualified to write about the subject with any authority. I really dont know what to say. The bottom line is that many will find these latest tweets incredibly offensive and insensitive whilst others wont be bothered by them in the slightest. Indeed, Ive probably irritated all of you already by either failing to condemn the tweets in the strongest possible terms or refusing to say its all a storm in a teacup. Please forgive me. What I will say, however, is this. I have no idea how far does this particular rabbit hole goes. This is extremely dangerous territory and it could be very damaging for the sport. This could be the mother of all feeding frenzies. The ECB have got the job from hell in the coming days. What I should clarify, however, is that (to correct my previous post) Ive since discovered that its actually the PCAs job to monitor players social media profiles. And they only look at current Tweets by existing international players. . Maybe a little. But ultimately the buck still stops with them. The current arrangements were clearly unsatisfactory and a lot more should have been done to preempt this shit storm. The question now is how long the storm will last and how the ECB deal with it. One imagines theyll try to work out which way the wind is blowing and muddle through the best they can. James Morgan