Alex Davies: Warwickshire's new signing given ECB ban for historical posts

Alex Davies' posts date back to his days with Lancashire as a teenager

Warwickshire's new signing Alex Davies will start the 2022 season sidelined after being banned for one game for historical social media posts.

An England and Wales Cricket Board discipline commission charged the former Lancashire wicketkeeper with breaching ECB directives 3.3/3.4.

Davies' tweets contained a number of racist, sexist, disablist, homophobic and other offensive remarks.

He has been banned in total for five games, four of which are suspended.

The posts relate to 17 offensive tweets from his Twitter account, over a period of 19 months between 3 September 2011 and 6 April 2013, when he was aged 17 and 18, and on the staff at Lancashire.

The tweets came to light in June 2021, when it was reported in both the national and local media that Lancashire were conducting an internal investigation - a month before his move to Edgbaston was announced.

They were publicly accessible until Davies deleted his Twitter account in the same month. He has until 17 February to appeal.

The remaining four matches of the ban have been suspended for two years, while Davies, who won the inaugural men's Hundred with Southern Brave last summer, has also been fined £1,500.

He will miss the defending county champions' opening game against Surrey at Edgbaston, starting on 7 April.

Bears chairman Mark McCafferty said: "There is no excuse for any form of discrimination, regardless of when it took place, and there has to be a real consequence for such actions.

"That said, people need to be given the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and he is extremely apologetic, recognises that what he wrote as a young man was wrong and has since worked hard to improve his attitude to life, as well as support younger players as they transition to being professionals."