Jofra Archer’s injury nightmare has taken another turn for the worse after he was ruled out for the entirety of England’s Ashes summer with a fresh stress fracture in his troublesome right elbow.
Archer has not played Test cricket for more than two years but had hoped to make his return against Australia after a long and arduous journey that has included several bouts of surgery on his elbow, as well as a stress fracture in the back which derailed his planned comeback last year.
There must be now be grave doubts as to whether the 28-year-old will ever again be available for the rigours of the five-day format.
He made his first tentative steps towards full recovery earlier this year, featuring in England’s limited-overs tours to South Africa and Bangladesh, but his body has once again broken down following a stint in the Indian Premier League.
Archer appeared just five times for Mumbai Indians, bowling 20 overs in total, and made a mid-tournament visit to Belgium for treatment on his elbow.
He reacted angrily on social media to reports of that trip and managed to bowl at express pace after returning to the IPL, but he was on his way home soon afterwards and England’s worst fears have now been realised.
He was seen as a key figure in ruffling Australian feathers, as he did during his Test debut at Lord’s in 2019 when an unforgettable duel with Steve Smith left the batter concussed by an unplayable bouncer.
A statement from the England and Wales Cricket Board read: “Sussex fast bowler Jofra Archer has been ruled out for the rest of the summer after recent scans revealed he has sustained a recurrence of a stress fracture to his right elbow. He will now spend time with the England and Sussex medical teams, who will work on his injury management.”
I’m sure we will see Jofra back to his best and winning games for England, whatever the format. Hopefully, sooner rather than later.”
Director of men’s cricket Rob Key, who heads up selection, added: “It has been a frustrating and upsetting period for Jofra Archer. He was making good progress until a recurrence of the elbow injury, which kept him out for an extended period previously.
“We wish him the best of luck with his recovery. I’m sure we will see Jofra back to his best and winning games for England, whatever the format. Hopefully, sooner rather than later.”
Speaking in March, Archer acknowledged he would be unlikely to get through a full five-match series in less than seven weeks but had set his sights on playing a role.
“If I can play one game this summer, I’ll be happy,” Archer said. “If I play more than one, that’s just a bonus.
“Coming back and playing cricket for England again means I have already done what I wanted to do.”
Archer played the last of his 13 Tests against India in February 2021 and went on to have two separate operations to try and resolve the stress fracture in his elbow.
He has since missed two T20 World Cups, including England’s victory in Australia in October, as well as the previous Ashes tour Down Under in 2021/22.
There have been reports that Mumbai had been looking to offer Archer a lucrative year-round contract, taking control of his playing schedule away from the ECB.
IPL: Mumbai Indians condemned to last-place finish after 18-run defeat to Super Giants
Rohit Sharma's half-century was not enough for Mumbai Indians as they slipped to an 18-run defeat to Lucknow Super Giants at Wankhede Stadium.
The defeat consigned Mumbai to bottom place in the Indian Premier League for the second time in the space of three seasons, after losing 10 matches this year.
LSG were also left to lament their misfortune, as despite reaching 14 points, they did not qualify for the play-offs.
KL Rahul's 55 got the ball rolling for Lucknow, but their innings was ebbing out until Nicholas Pooran's dazzling 29-ball 75 took them to 214-6, despite the efforts of Nuwan Thushara (3-28) and Piyush Chawla (3-29), who stepped up in Jasprit Bumrah's absence.
Rohit's 38-ball 68 set the tone for what looked set to be a promising Mumbai chase, as he struck 13 boundaries around a short rain delay.
However, Mumbai went from 88 without loss to 120-5 in the space of six overs, leaving the tail with too much of a mountain to climb.
Data Debrief: Lucknow miss out
While Mumbai sit bottom of the pile yet again, it is a case of what might have been for LSG, who for the first time in their three-season history, failed to make the top four.
Fourteen points is often enough to get over the line and into the play-offs, but their poor net run rate of -0.667 means they miss out.
Tape ball programme can help England find unorthodox talent – Richard Gould
The England and Wales Cricket Board hopes to unearth a new seam of talent beyond the game’s traditional league structure with a national tape ball scheme that allows players to thrive without “whites, willow and leather”.
The practice of using a soft ball wrapped in electrical tape to aid swing and variable bounce is a common one in Asia, where it has helped produce express pace bowlers like Haris Rauf, Shaheen Afridi and spinners such as Rashid Khan and Shakib-al-Hasan, but has been slow to enter the mainstream conversation in the United Kingdom.
The Chance to Shine charity has long pioneered tape ball cricket as part of its engagement hubs and now, with the ECB keen to live up to its lofty aspiration of becoming the most inclusive team sport in the country, it is at the heart of a new core cities programme designed to engage ‘diverse communities in urban areas’.
Speaking at a launch event where games were hosted in a warehouse space in Birmingham, ECB chief executive Richard Gould was optimistic about reaching out to those with an interest in cricket but limited access to the pavilions and prepared pitches in the club setup.
“We talk about clubs with picket fences around them. In the past that has been seen as the preserve of the ECB. We’ve missed a complete trick on that,” he said.
“When we talk about the recreational game we’re not just talking about Premier League clubs and village cricket clubs now. We’re talking about all forms of cricket that take place.
“You can play the game anywhere, any time, with anybody, in any environment you want. You don’t have to have whites, willow and leather to do it. You can just pick up a bat and a ball and have some fun.”
As well as fulfilling its remit of reaching out to all comers at a grassroots level, Gould also believes there are benefits to finding cricketers with different styles who have learned the game outside the traditional, private-school heavy pathways.
“Without doubt there are,” he said. “We have to get out and try to find the talent. More to the point, we have to try and find talent in areas that we haven’t normally looked for it.
“I do think county pathways will be looking to make sure they don’t miss out on this talent. It’s just about punching through all of our normal procedures and finding ways to both get people in the game and unearthing that talent which may be unorthodox and great.”
Meg Lanning: Exercise obsession and not enough fuel led to Australia retirement
Former Australia captain Meg Lanning revealed her “obsession” with exercise and not eating enough precipitated her surprise international retirement late last year.
Lanning was at the helm of one of the most dominant eras the sport has ever seen but she missed last year’s Ashes for medical reasons and pulled the plug on her Australia career in November.
She opened up about her hidden health issues on the Howie Games podcast, explaining that running up to 90 kilometres a week coupled with eating two small meals a day led to her dropping from 64kg to 57kg.
View this post on Instagram“I was over-exercising and under-fuelling,” the 32-year-old said. “It wasn’t a physical thing. I’ve always been really physically active and liked that side of it, but it became a bit of an obsession.
“I’d maybe eat a couple of meals a day if I was lucky but they weren’t significant. Initially it didn’t start off as a deliberate thing, it just became a bit of a new normal.
“But it slowly crept into conscious decisions because essentially I felt good.
“I wasn’t getting injured like everybody was telling me I was going to do. It sort of just spiralled and I was in denial, even though everybody kept telling me something wasn’t quite right.
“I was not in a place to be able to go on tour and play cricket and give the commitment levels that were required for that Ashes series, mentally and physically.”
Lanning, who led Australia to five World Cup titles in total and Commonwealth Games glory in 2022, said her struggle was not officially diagnosed as an eating disorder.
“It wasn’t labelled as that but I was exercising a lot and I wasn’t eating enough to fuel that – it was a bit out of whack,” Lanning said.
“It was a bit of control because I felt very out of control with what my future looked like. I felt like I was in control of that and that made me feel better.”
Lanning sought help from medical professionals after also struggling with insomnia and continues to play domestically, while she has been signed for London Spirit for The Hundred this year.
“I dreaded night time because I knew I would go to bed and not be able to sleep,” she said. “That would make me so mad. I would just get more angry with myself. If you can’t sleep, you can’t do anything.
“I feel like I’m in a good spot now. Cricket is still part of what I do. But I wasn’t cut out for the international touring schedule and what came with all of that.”
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