England seamer Ollie Robinson faced a huge backlash for abusing the Aussie opener Usman Khawaja during Day 3 of the Ashes 2023 Edgbaston Test. The English pacer was captured firing cuss words towards Khawaja after dismissing the left-handed batter on 141 runs and gave him a send-off in a pumped-up manner.
After huge discussions and condemnation of the act committed by Robinson, Aussie greats Allan Border and Ian Healy have now also come forward and slammed the right-arm pacer for derogatory remarks on Khawaja. However, Robinson defended himself by citing the example of a former Australia captain who was famous for aggression on the field.
Although Border confessed that such incidents happen in the heat of the moment, he further went on to reckon that Robinson will surely get a payback from the Aussies when he comes out to bat in the second innings.
“I have heard some send-offs and have given some send-offs myself. It is sort of heat of the moment sort of stuff. Generally, I think Robinson is a pretty fair bloke from what I gather. But, you get fired up as a big fast bowler, words are said and then afterwards it’s all forgotten about generally. The media will jump on it, of course, but you know what goes around comes around, he’s put a bit of a target on his head. When he comes out the bat, hopefully it’s early tomorrow, and the Aussies won’t forget that’s for sure,” said Border on SEN Breakfast.
Meanwhile, Healy said that Robinson must be fined for trying to incite Khwaja and termed his act very rude on the same SEN Breakfast show.
“It is a lack of class like he’s been criticised for, but that’s ok, it happens in the heat of the moment. I think he should have been punished because it was shown so closely on TV and it does incite retaliation. If Khawaja retaliated to that and said something back to him, he’d probably get in trouble. He (Robinson) was trying to incite that, it was rude and it was rugged. There probably should have been a little fine handed down to Ollie,” Healy shared his views.
On the other hand, Robinson later during the post-match press conference stated that his action was ‘theatre of the game’ and justified his act by saying that Australian legend Ricky Ponting has done similar things in past as well.
“We all want that theatre of the game, so I am here to provide it. I don’t really care how it is perceived to be honest. It’s the Ashes, it’s professional sport. If you can’t handle that, what can you handle?,” said Robinson.
“When you’re in the heat of the moment and you have the passion of the Ashes, that can happen. We’ve all seen Ricky Ponting and other Aussies do the same to us, and just because the shoe is on the other foot it’s not received well,” he added.
