Jofra’s injury a big Test for skipper Root
PACE ACE ADDS TO ASHES WOE
ENGLAND could be facing an Ashes campaign in which the wheels fall off before they have even touched down on Aussie soil.
That would be some going for poor old Joe Root, who must have thought it could not get much worse than when he was slipping between throwing up in the bathroom and sleeping in the SCG dressing rooms while Steve Smith celebrated a 4-0 win in 2018.
But with Ben Stokes taking an indefinite break from the game and
Olly Stone and Jofra Archer, two of his three fastest bowlers, suffering stress fractures of the back and elbow respectively, the winter looks bleak.
England’s hopes of having a three-man battery of Mark Wood, Stone and Archer to pepper the Aussie batsmen with high octane, extreme pace have already been dashed.
Of course, there is plenty more to Test cricket beyond the Ashes, with a new round of the World Test Championship already under way at Trent Bridge. But how much of it will involve Archer, even when he is able to return to the field, remains a great unknown, with many fearing that he may already have played his last Test.
Archer tweeted the following classically cryptic message after the news of his injury had been digested around the world. “Everything happens for a reason,” he posted. If his body is only able to let him bowl the reduced overs of T20 cricket, that could well be his long-term future. That was a decision reached early on by Tymal Mills due to a back condition and likewise later on in his career by Sri Lankan paceman Lasith Malinga (knee). Archer is in huge demand in T20 cricket, having been a star of the IPL and the Big Bash for several years and named IPL player of the tournament in 2020. And should he play T20 cricket only, he could enjoy an extremely lucrative and successful career in that format. And Sir Alastair Cook would not blame him for choosing T20 if Test cricket becomes physically too much.
“If there is any chance with England they can get it right they will, but what about for him personally?” said BBC TMS pundit Cook. “If every time he bowls it hurts and he thinks, ‘I can’t bowl long spells’ he may end up ruling himself out of Test cricket and just play T20. “You cannot possibly blame him for that.”
It was at Lord’s in 2019, when Archer showed the world just what a threat he was in Test cricket with the most hostile of spells at the Aussies, but since then it has been a struggle.