Jofra’s Ashes bid faces the elbow
TEST FUTURE IN BALANCE
JUST four short years on from spearheading England’s victorious World Cup campaign, Jofra Archer’s future as an international fast bowler is in the balance.
It is not just because he has returned home early from this season’s IPL after playing five matches with a bout of surgery sandwiched in the middle.
Nor is it because there is any doubt about the quality he possesses when his body allows him to crank up the pace and make life difficult for the best in the world.
It is simply that his right elbow, upon which his career as a premier fast bowler hinges, cannot be relied on to look after him, despite the way he has tried to look after it.
This is not Archer’s fault, nor is it the fault of the countless medics and physios and support staff who have given him the best of their knowledge and care to get him back to his best as often as possible.
Sometimes the thing that makes you special is also your greatest weakness.
And for Archer, despite all the rest and careful training programmes he has followed, and all the surgeries and injections he has had up to now, there has been no solution to the problem he continues to face.
His friend and Test captain Ben Stokes knows what Archer is going through, having had to deal with the pain and frustration of a body that stops you performing.
Stokes’ message to Archer on social media was succinct and to the point: “This guy has got the heart of a lion. We know what you’ve been through and what you’ve put your body through.”
The pain in the elbow is still there, and it may always be there up to a point, no matter how it is treated.
And so if bowling four overs at a time in the IPL is enough to draw a line under things early, then the chances of him being able to recreate the scenes at Lord’s when he unsettled Steve Smith so memorably in the 2019 Ashes appear as remote as ever. No wonder Archer let out some of that frustration when the news of his latest surgery a few weeks ago made headlines, describing it as a ‘worrying and troubling time for a player.’
Sadly for Archer so much of the last three years have been a worry as he has battled hard to get back fit for England.
The plan was for him to be one of three bowlers with pace as their point of difference this summer.
But with Olly Stone facing a lengthy time on the sidelines following a hamstring injury, it looks as though Mark Wood will once again be carrying the pace load on his own in the Ashes.