The England and Wales Cricket Board is looking into claims a second England player posted “historic offensive material”, just a day after the governing body suspended seamer Ollie Robinson for past racist and sexist tweets.
Wisden.com has unearthed a tweet, publishing its content but concealing the alleged England cricketer’s identity because he was under the age of 16 at the time.
The ECB said in a statement: “It has been brought to our attention that an England player has posted historic offensive material on their social media account.
“We are looking into it and will make a further comment in due course.”
Prime Minister Boris Johnson earlier on Monday agreed with Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden’s assessment that the suspension of Robinson from all international cricket was “over the top”.
Robinson, 27, issued an apology for social media posts he wrote in 2012 and 2013, when he was in his late teens, that came to light and were shared online on the day he made his Test bow against New Zealand at Lord’s last week.
He has been suspended pending a disciplinary investigation by the ECB, which drew a surprising rebuke from Secretary of State Dowden, who waded into the matter on Monday morning.
Bess, who took 12 wickets in the series win in Sri Lanka at the start of the year before struggling for consistency in India, should be able to train with England from Wednesday after 48 hours of managed isolation.
“Jack’s absolutely fine,” Silverwood added. “The reason we’ve added Dom is that any cover we may need has to be in here with us.
“If Jack was to feature, we would need back-up for him, in terms of concussion replacements and things like that. If we are looking at a spinner and Jack gets injured leading into it, then we will need someone else there.”
Meanwhile, England’s players have been fined 40 per cent of their match fees by the International Cricket Council for maintaining a slow over-rate in the first Test, finishing two overs short of the target after time allowances were taken into consideration.
