England support 'emotional' Archer after racist abuse

Players from England will rally around an "emotional" Jofra Archer after a spectator in New Zealand racially abused the paceman, cricket director Ashley Giles said Tuesday as local officials scoured CCTV footage to identify the culprit.

"It's a shame that something is still in culture," Giles told reporters after Archer had been exposed to racist comments after being excluded from Mount Maunganui's opening test late on day five.

After the game, the Barbados-born bowler tweeted that it was "a bit troublesome to hear racial insults today when trying to help save my squad."

The 24-year-old later told ESPNcricinfo that the abuser was a lonely New Zealand spectator commenting "on my skin color."

Archer was a strong activist of cricket inclusion, and when asked how the player was doing, Giles answered: "The tweet, it was clearly painful, it hurts." We fully support Jof, there's no place for discrimination in the match... You see what our team is like, they're going to rally around it. "The incident dominated the first test ever held at Mount Maunganui's Bay Oval, which New Zealand won with an innings and 65 runs.

Black Caps captain Kane Williamson described the taunt as "horrific," while New Zealand Cricket said that if identified from the CCTV footage of the venue, the guilty party would be reported to the police and face a life ban.

One fool'-Williamson said that discrimination is "against all we, as Kiwis, are talking about."

"It's a horrific thing. He told news website stuff.co.nz in a country and setting where it's very multi-cultural."

"We need to quickly put it to bed and hope that nothing like that ever happens again."

Williamson and David White, chief executive of New Zealand Cricket, both apologized to Archer.

White ordered additional security to ensure that the second test in Hamilton, starting Friday, did not repeat and called on spectators to "self-police" unacceptable behavior.

"We're going to increase security around the areas where players are, especially when they come on and off the field, but when players are on the boundary it's pretty difficult," he told Newstalk ZB.

"I'd like to think there's also a bit of self-police going on, we're not supposed to accept this kind of behavior in our society."