No qualms over ‘special’ Archer’s T20 selection

England MD Rob Key has backed Jofra Archer to prove he is the team’s “special” one at the T20 World Cup but admits he is still crossing his fingers over the seamer’s fitness after a year out of the game.

Once he was passed fit for England’s title defence in the Caribbean, Key had no qualms about selecting Archer, right, in a 15-man squad, despite the 29-year-old suffering a long series of setbacks over the past couple of years.

He has not played professional cricket since the Indian Premier League last May, laid low by a recurrence of a stress fracture in his troublesome right elbow, but his status as an X-factor cricketer means he is pencilled in to lead the attack with high expectations.

All he has to do now is make the team flight to his native Barbados on May 31 without picking up any further injuries.

“Jofra is a bowler that’s just so special you do everything you can to try to get him back playing,” said Key, England’s managing director of men’s cricket.

“When you look at the attributes you want for a bowler in international cricket, Jofra has all of them.”

Archer is currently playing club cricket in Barbados and will turn out for Sussex’s second XI before featuring in a four-match warm-up series against Pakistan at the end of May.

The majority of England’s squad was long settled, with only a couple of tricky picks to work through.

Uncapped left-armer Tom Hartley got the nod ahead of teenage leg-spinner Rehan Ahmed as back-up to Adil Rashid and Moeen Ali, with the Lancastrian proving his mettle on the recent Test tour of India, while there were contrasting fortunes for Chris Jordan and Chris Woakes. No pace bowler has taken more T20 wickets for England than 35-year-old Jordan, a close friend and Bajan compatriot of Archer, and an uptick in his batting output has tipped the scales in his favour.

Woakes, meanwhile, was overlooked by England having struggled at key moments in last year’s 50-over World Cup wipeout.