How social media haunts the sportsman
Wednesday, June 2, was to be the greatest day in Ollie Robinson’s sporting life. He was playing his first Test and doing so after, as it were, knocking on the door of the England dressing-room for a couple of years. And the match was at Lord’s, where every cricketer hopes to shine. It began well. He took two of the three New Zealand wickets to fall, dismissing Tom Latham and Ross Taylor, both batsmen of the highest class. Then his day turned.
Someone had unearthed a few tweets that Robinson had sent nine years ago, in 2012, when he was eighteen. They might be read as sexist, racist, Islamophobic. They might also be read as rather heavy attempts at humour by a callow young man. How many of us would care to be held to account for the pub conversations of our youth, or indeed for the holiday postcards we sent to friends? “Use every man after his deserts,” as Hamlet sagely said, perhaps recalling his own student days, “and which of us would ‘scape whipping?”
Well, one who at least merits a word of reproof or tongue-lashing is the malicious twerp who sought out these tweets, or perhaps hoarded them for years waiting for the moment when their publication would cause Robinson the greatest embarrassment and do him the most damage.
As for Robinson, it is clear that he was in a bit of a mess as a young man. He was on the Yorkshire staff then but dismissed for “unprofessionalism”. He was a poor time-keeper, missing training sessions or late for them, partly at least because he was juggling his life between work in Yorkshire and a girlfriend in Kent. He seems to have got the message and learnt his lesson; his failure with Yorkshire was followed by success with Sussex and his well-deserved selection for England.
Meanwhile, a shadow from the past has also fallen over Craig Overton, Robinson’s rival for a place in the England attack. Back in 2015, playing for Somerset against Sussex, he was reported by the umpire, Alex Wharf, for telling the Sussex Pakistani batsman Ashar Zaidi to “go back to your own f***ing country”. Well, Overton was then only twenty, and fast bowlers have been angered by batsmen and taking it out on them, at least since the Australian Ernest Jones sent a ball through W G Grace’s beard and said, “sorry, Doctor, she slipped”.
If young Overton had told an Australian or New Zealander playing in the County Championship to “get back to your own f***ing country”, I doubt if there would have been any fuss at all; the umpire might have said only “keep calm, son”, or not even that. If the absence of racism requires us to treat everyone with the same respect, it follows that when expressing irritation, anger or disapproval, there should likewise be no discrimination on account of colour, class, nationality and creed.
The Ollie Robinson story will have been irritating, as well as disappointing, for the England management, coach and captain, for they have been making a very public affirmation of their opposition to racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination. Well, this is no doubt admirable and as it should be. People, and especially young people, are, to some extent anyway, influenced by those they admire – although parents, teachers and friends of their own age have more influence than distant stars.
In any case, people are not selected to play international sport because they are model citizens, or because of the sweetness of their character. They don’t even have to be likeable. One would like to think they are, and many great players in every sport have indeed been admirable characters. But some have been insecure, jealous of others, even of their teammates; some quick-tempered, others morose. For the sportsman, failure threatens every day. Steve Waugh, one of Australia’s greatest cricketers, made thirty-two Test hundreds. He also made twenty ducks. The rewards of victory and high achievement are sweet, but the next day brings a new challenge that you may not meet. Alan Jones, coach of the 1984 Grand Slam Wallabies, used to sum it up well: “today you’re a rooster, tomorrow a feather duster.”
Well, young Ollie Robinson experienced both on Wednesday, he was both rooster and feather duster. We learned a lot about him on Thursday when he came back, bowled very well, took two more wickets and would have found his name on the Lord’s Honours List if Stuart Broad hadn’t dropped a straightforward catch which would have given him the much-prized 5 wickets in an innings.
We have learned that he has character, and is capable of looking the two imposters, Triumph and Disaster, in the face. And I trust he has also learned what is a very necessary lesson for sportsmen: to be wary of social media, which may also be called ‘Janus-faced’ – a good friend if you are careful, a false and malicious one if you aren’t.