Former England skipper Nasser Hussain wants pacer Ollie Robinson to keep the banter against Australia at a minimum and concentrate on his performances on the field instead. This comes after his infamous send-off to Usman Khawaja during the Edgbaston Test, which England went on to lose by two wickets.
Robinson was criticised for the banter, which he defended by naming the likes of Australian legend Ricky Ponting and others, which did not go well with Nasser Hussain.
"He's not the first cricketer to give someone a send-off in an Ashes battle and there's a few Aussies that have given send-offs over the years," Hussain said told the ICC review.
"I've sort of enjoyed the to-ing and fro-ing from Ricky. We had Ricky working with us at Sky (Sky Sports) and the WhatsApp group was going ballistic that night... of all the Australians Ollie Robinson could mention, he mentioned Ricky. Our WhatsApp group was very, very funny that night and I can't tell you some of Ricky's responses."
Robinson took five wickets in the first Test. Hussain wants Robinson to keep the war of words at a minimum and show his abilities with the ball. He also discouraged the pace from taking any press obligations for the rest of the Ashes.
"I wouldn't be saying anything to Ollie Robinson (if I was England captain), apart from which end would you like to bowl and show us your skills," Hussain said. "But I might be having a word with the media guy and saying I'm hearing too much from Ollie Robinson off the field and we have 10 other cricketers that can do the press and the media.
"The problem nowadays are the various outlets he might be writing or doing one of the websites…you get asked by various media outlets and then that's magnified on social media.
"Just whoever is in charge, I don't want to be hearing about Ollie Robinson off the field, so can we just keep him away from the press just for the next four Ashes games as it builds through the series and it becomes the centre of attention."
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