Culture secretary Oliver Dowden says the ECB have “gone over the top” by suspending Ollie Robinson pending an investigation into historical racist and sexist tweets by the bowler.
The posts, which date back to 2012 and 2013, came to light while Robinson was making his England Test debut against New Zealand last week.
The 27-year-old finished the match, which was drawn, with seven wickets but he has been dropped from the squad for the second Test - which begins on Thursday at Edgbaston.
Robinson has apologised for the tweets, which were sent when when was a teenager, and now Dowden has questioned the ECB suspending him.
“Ollie Robinson’s tweets were offensive and wrong,” he tweeted on Monday morning.
“They are also a decade old and written by a teenager. The teenager is now a man and has rightly apologised. The ECB has gone over the top by suspending him and should think again.”
A spokesperson for prime minister Boris Johnson added later in the day: "As Oliver Dowden set out, these were comments made more than a decade ago, written by someone as a teenager, and for which they rightly apologised."
