England fast bowler Ollie Robinson has been suspended from "all international cricket" after historical racist and sexist tweets came to light earlier this week during his test debut against New Zealand.
Robinson, 27, was the pick of England's bowlers in the drawn test with seven wickets in the match and had released a statement on Wednesday apologising for his "thoughtless and irresponsible" tweets.
"England and Sussex bowler Ollie Robinson has been suspended from all international cricket pending the outcome of a disciplinary investigation following historic tweets he posted in 2012 and 2013," the English Cricket Board said in a statement.
"He will not be available for selection for the second test against New Zealand starting at Edgbaston on June 10 (11th NZ time).
"Robinson will leave the England camp immediately and return to his county."
The social media posts came to light during day one of the test, during Robinson's first day as an international cricketer where he took the wickets of Tom Latham and Ross Taylor.
"On the biggest day of my career so far, I am embarrassed by the racist and sexist tweets that I posted over eight years ago, which have today become public," Robinson said.
"I want to make it clear that I'm not racist and I'm not sexist.
"I deeply regret my actions and I am ashamed of making such remarks.
"I was thoughtless and irresponsible, and regardless of my state of mind at the time, my actions were inexcusable. Since that period, I have matured as a person and fully regret the tweets."
Robinson does not want tweets from eight years ago to "diminish the efforts" of his teammates and the country's cricket board in efforts to combat racism and sexism.
"I will continue to educate myself, look for advice and work with the support network that is available to me to learn more about getting better in this area," he added.
ECB chief executive Tom Harrison said on Friday he did "not have the words to express how disappointed" he was.
"Any person reading those words, particularly a woman or person of colour, would take away an image of cricket and cricketers that is completely unacceptable," he said.
"We are better than this.
"We have a zero-tolerance stance to any form of discrimination and there are rules in place that handle conduct of this nature. We will initiate a full investigation as part of our disciplinary process."
Reuters / Newshub
