FORMER Lancashire County Cricket Club wicketkeeper and batsman Alex Davies has been banned for five matches, four of them suspended, for a series of offensive tweets he posted as a teenager which were exclusively uncovered by the Lancashire Telegraph in June.

Darwen-born Davies, 27, who joined Warwickshire from Lancashire ahead of the 2022 season, was also fined £1,500.

A disciplinary panel convened by the ECB’s Cricket Discipline Commission found that the tweets were "in clear breach of the ECB’s anti-discrimination policy" and contained a number of "racist, sexist, disablist, homophobic and other offensive remarks".

The 17 offensive tweets were posted from Davies’s Twitter account between September 3, 2011 and April 6, 2013, when he was aged 17 and 18.

They were publicly accessible until June 2021, when Davies deleted his Twitter account.

Davies has two weeks to appeal, but Warwickshire chair Mark McCafferty said the club expect him to "accept his punishment with good grace".

Mr 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."

After being approached by the Lancashire Telegraph at the time, Lancashire County Cricket Club conducted its own "immediate investigation" into tweets posted by several players - which is said to have concluded with "formal warnings".

Speaking in June, Daniel Gidney, chief executive at Lancashire Cricket, said: "Lancashire Cricket strongly condemns the use of any discriminatory language or behaviour by any member of the club’s players or staff at any point in time.

"We abhor all forms of discrimination which, as a club, we find totally unacceptable.
"We are currently undertaking an immediate review and investigation and the relevant information has been referred to the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB)."

The Lancashire Telegraph has screenshots of the tweets but has chosen not to publish them because of their offensive nature.