The fan accused of racially abusing Jofra Archer during England’s tour of New Zealand has been banned from attending international and domestic fixtures for two years, the New Zealand Cricket (NZC) board has confirmed.
Archer was subjected to racial abuse as he walked back to the pavilion during the final day of the Mount Maunganui Test in November and subsequently wrote on Twitter: “A bit disturbing hearing racial insults today whilst battling to help save my team, the crowd was been amazing this week except for that one guy, @TheBarmyArmy was good as usual also.”
In a previous tweet which was deleted, Archer further described the nature of the abuse, writing: “Can the guy that was yelling bbc and bc from the scoreboard area today come forward and tell me what those words mean please? Because I don’t...”
NZC referred the incident to the police having failed “to conclusively identify the person responsible”.
A statement released by the organisation on Monday evening confirmed a 28-year-old man from Auckland had admitted to being responsible and was issued with a verbal warning.
NZC spokesman Anthony Crummy added that if the man breached the conditions of his ban and attended a fixture he would be removed from the venue and become subject to police action.
“We’d again like to extend our apologies to Jofra and the England team management for such an unsavoury incident and reiterate once more that this type of behaviour is completely unacceptable,” the statement read.
“We want to thank the NZ Police for their efforts in identifying the person responsible, and for making it clear that this type of behaviour will not be minimised.”
