Graeme Swann is the latest casualty in the Twitter parade. It is very difficult to separate his Ashes mid-tour decision to quit cricket only a day after he made a crass comment on the social media’s most dangerous message alert. Later regrets don’t seem to count and that spur of a moment 140 letter reaction comes back to bite you and bite you hard.

Later Graeme apologized for his comments where he was rather colorfully comparing defeat in Perth to rape.

And the tweeting hasn’t stopped. Hardly a day after slagged off unnamed players who ‘had no idea how far up their backsides they are....” but later denied he meant the current English team as he targeted former cricketer and columnist Derek Pringle for writing rubbish.

It’s pretty much like journalists looking back over their careers and writing something incredibly stupid and thoughtless, often erasing years of hard work because of one foolish comment. Not a journalist who hasn’t been there, done that and rued it.

Thing is, that moment it is brutally honest and often even seems called for and it takes only seconds to say how you feel so you get it out of your system. But, then in the cold light of day it gets splattered all over the world and inflections are read into it and before you know what’s happened a private exchange between two brothers becomes a global issue. How it leaked out is beyond me but also beyond hundreds of users of the social sites who still haven’t grasped the nuances of sending private messages and the slew of settings that go with it.

Shaun Pollock put it rather well though he did get ribbed about it.

“A mistake we make is 2 answer people too quickly, just giving them something off the top of our head. Give it some thought and get back to them.”

Sage advice but then the point of tweeting is lost.

Not that Graeme is the first to be bruised. Suresh Raina got into trouble for a cheap shot from his account after Pakistan lost the semis match in the World Cup. He later apologized, saying his nephew had tweeted from his account. During the IPL David Warner sent off a series of tweets against two journalists who had been giving him a hard time. One remark said, “Shock me @crashcraddock1 talking s*** about ipl jealous p****. Get a real job. All you do is bag people. #getalife.”

This was followed by: “Are you still talking you old #@$&, no wonder no one buys your paper.”

Cricket Australia took it seriously.

Remember the famous Kevingate issue when Pietersen had been dispatching derogatory messages about his captain to the opposition. He then discovered that his private comments had gone viral. These included remarks he made to James Anderson and Graeme Swann (same fella.) “Mate, your hair looks stupid” and “Shall I show you how to bowl off spin, muppet.”

“If I was English, you’d be the kind of jokers who’d make me ashamed to be English.”

Five best worst tweets.

Aldershot soccer player Marvin Morgan: “Like to thank the fans who booed me off the pitch. Where’s that going to get you! I hope you all die.”

Nascar driver Denny Hamlin was fined $50,000 for this observation: “Truthfully I don’t think it matters to the fans who wins the race as long as it’s a good “show.” Even if it comes as the expense of competition.”

Footballer Carlton Cole in a West Ham vs Ghana match; “Immigration has surrounded the Wembley premises! I knew it was a trap! Hahahaha.”

But nobody laughed.

Man U’s Wayne Rooney to a fan who was verbally heckling him; “I will put u asleep within 10 seconds hope u turn up if u don’t gonna tell everyone ur scared u little nit. I’ll be waiting.”

During the current Ashes Cricket Australia posted a picture of four Sikhs in red spectacles on its twitter account under the caption: “Will the real Monty Panesar please stand up?”

There was nothing funny about it and most of the reaction labeled it racist and silly.