County cricket club launches probe after offensive tweets by players were unearthed

A county cricket club has put its players on an 'enhanced education' course after 10-year-old offensive tweets were unearthed.

Lancashire County Cricket Club condemned the tweets and has launched an internal probe after it found last month that more than 50 historical tweets were made by five players, dating back to 2011.

According to reports, three of the players were under 18 when the tweets were sent and had remained on the players' accounts until unearthed by a local newspaper. However, it is believed that the posts were deleted after the club was informed about it.

"The club would like to reiterate that Lancashire Cricket strongly condemns the use of any discriminatory language or behaviour by any player or staff at any point in time," a club spokesman was quoted as saying by MailOnline.

He added: "Over the past three weeks, a thorough independent investigation has taken place.

"This investigation has now concluded and the findings will remain confidential, but significant learnings have been taken on board and the club's board will take action where required.

"The club also commits to ongoing enhanced education for all players and continues to implement its Equality, Diversity and Inclusion strategy across the whole organisation, working closely with the Lancashire Cricket Foundation.

"Lancashire Cricket will handle this process internally and won't be making any further comment."

A number of tweets are referred to females in a derogatory way, which have been labelled 'abhorrent' by equality campaign group Stump Out Sexism.

Roisin McCallion, the group's co-founder, said: "The tweets in question are undeniably utterly abhorrent and very clearly highlight the pertinence of sexism in our society.

"If we truly wish to stump out sexism in cricket, we also need to work on tackling sexism in broader society: acknowledge there is a problem and educate men and boys on why there is no place for this kind of language at any time."

The probe came after the ECB suspended Ollie Robinson after his Test debut last month due to historical racist Twitter posts when he was 18 and 19.