I haven't said he doesn't get in. If he has a good pre season and shows form he'll be in, I'd hate to think he just walks in though. Yates, Sibley, Hain and Rhodes will most probably start the season all being well. Overseas batsman, maybe? We only normally pick 5 batsman early season, keeper at 6 and have the extra seamer. Is Davies gonna keep? Does Burgess keep the gloves and bat 6? We have lots of batting options now. Does Benjamin stay in 4 day contention? Does Lamb continue his improvement? Mousley will be challenging for a spot. This is a good thing, we have proper competition for places. We were in a situation years back where it seemed certain batsmen came in and were untouchable.

Misses 1st game of the season now right?

"M'lud, I ask for leniency on behalf of my client. Apart from being racist, sexist, disablist, homophobic and offensive in a few other ways, his tweets were perfectly innocent. And there were only a mere 17 of them."

Guilty as charged. One match ban.

To be fair, the offending tweets were done a long time ago and he was quite young. But to say things that are racist, sexist, disablist, homophobic and offensive in a few other non-specified ways takes some doing.
https://resources.ecb.co.uk/ecb/document/2022/02/08/e68f5312-0a4b-4ac4-aac1-ef25ac11811e/CDC-Disciplinary-Hearing-Alex-Davies.pdf
It was known that he was under investigation when he joined Warwickshire so I don't think we can complain about the one match ban.

I find it amazing that there are any professional sportspeople out there who haven't been through their old social media posts. I know I have been (and I didn't find anything too bad, just a few embarrassing posts!)

I think we need details ...

I don't think I like the 'he was very young' defence. It implies that racism, sexism, homophobia, etc etc are merely a rite of passage that every young man goes through and comes out the other side. It's nonsense. I grant you that social media didn't exist when I was a young man but I can say without fear of contradiction that I've never been racist, sexist, homophobic, etc etc. I do wonder how these players are being brought up. Second, there's more evidence than anyone needs that a great many people never do come out the other side and continue to exhibit such bigotry as they get older. There's an element of only apologising because they get caught.

I don't agree that the "very young" defence implies that racism, sexism, homophobia, etc etc are merely a rite of passage that every young man goes through and comes out the other side. What it does imply is that there are some young people who, because of their upbringing, take on board beliefs and assumptions that they later, once exposed to other influences, reject.
I think there are three levels of regret. One is "I regret being found out." Two is "I regret that I hold certain beliefs that I can no longer express without getting into trouble." Three is "I regret that in my youth I held and expressed views that I no longer hold."
I have no idea which type of regret Alex Davies is truly feeling, though I obviously hope it is type three.

I agree, and I also think that what is deemed as “acceptable” can change quite a lot over the course of even a decade. There are words or phrases that I would say when I was 18 that people didn’t bat an eyelid at then that definitely wouldn’t be acceptable now, 10 years later

The reason I say it's a flimsy defence is for precisely the reason you state, i.e. that not all young men express views like Davies' merely because they're young. Being young in itself is no excuse whatsoever. A much stronger defence would be to ignore the youth angle and say 'he had terrible parents', 'he's thick', etc. The level of regret thing is interesting: in every case I can think of the person involved has said - almost in the same words - 'I'm not the person now that I was then. I've matured and I no longer hold those views.' The fact that they all say more or less the same thing makes me wonder how sincere they are. Clearly some of those involved in the Rafiq case didn't mature at all as they got older. That's another reason why the youth defence is poor: older people can hold those views too.

Has he got off lightly here? Maybe? I'm not sure...

It is not acceptable in 2022 I assume it was not acceptable when it was published.

Why was it not reported back then? Surely if its punishable now it should have been dealt with years ago

I don't think there was anything like the same scrutiny of social media usage back in 2011-13 when the offending tweets were posted. Had they been picked up, they would surely have been seen as unacceptable and hopefully some action would have been taken.

Just interesting to understand who is going through these accounts, looking back so far and for what benefit...

Feels like you could have made mistakes in your past, learnt from them and changed, and suddenly be punished for them years later based on a view that youve long since removed yourself from (or at least I hope that's the case)

Whilst I don't think it's the case in this instance, I hope players aren't punished for comments that were acceptable a decade ago but are seen differently now.

Information (at second hand - I wasn't there) from Paul Farbrace's talk to the Cricket Society.
Alex Davis is likely to keep wicket in T20 and be available to reinforce the batting in 4 day and 50 over cricket.
In addition, Paul Farbrace sees Michael Burgess as having potential to play for England, in which case, Alex Davis could take over the gloves in all cricket.

There are teams of people at the newspapers who trawl through old posts from years back just to stir up a hornets nest. All very sad and pathetic really. Imagine a lot of players have over the last few years deleted their accounts just in case the merest thing can be construed as being against the rules or unacceptable. It now forms a massive part of player development.

Well, Davies won't be batting (or keeping wicket) in the 50 over, he's in the 100, with Southern Brave.