Archer can’t pass fitness Test after starting too fast
Jofra Archer is the sort of bowler whose presence at the end of his run-up triggers an involuntary drying of the mouth for a batter. Maybe the odd butterfly too. Definitely an adrenaline release. Terrifying pace does that if you are 22 yards away.
It does something for those watching, too.
There is no wonder England were so elated when he came along. A genuine English quickie – well, a quickie off the Barbados production line but one qualified to play for England – I mean, who wouldn’t be thrilled? A top-order wicket-taker with an evil hidden bouncer, a shock merchant to make things happen when all was quiet and a tail-end demolisher all wrapped into one.What a find.
And so they bowled him. And bowled him. And bowled him. And eventually he broke. And, it turns out, could not be repaired.
In their giddy excitement, England could not get enough of Archer; now they cannot get a game out of him.
We are left pondering, not whether Archer will be fit for the Ashes this summer, but whether he will realistically ever be healthy enough to play for England again.
When he was roughing up Australia in the last home Ashes and helping to win the World Cup, he was the go-to guy for his captains. It was Archer who Eoin Morgan turned to – after a painkilling operation on a side strain -– to bowl the World Cup final Super Over at Lord’s in 2019. And it was Archer who Root called on again and again in times of need for the Test side that year.
In his first seven Test matches, Archer sent down 274 overs in 136 days. That included 42 in a single innings against New Zealand at Mount Maunganui.
He played one more Test against South Africa the following month before being diagnosed with a stress fracture of his right elbow. He has never been the same since.
Archer has now undergone five operations on that elbow and it is still not right.
The treadmill of frustration he has endured must be debilitating.
He has just broken down again and flown home from the IPL to a summer of uncertainty. When he reappeared for England for the first time in 22 months on the white-ball tour of South Africa in February, hopes were rekindled that maybe he could put his run of misery behind him but, sadly, that proved a false dawn.
The outlook is as bleak now as it has ever been.
Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum may want to keep crossing their fingers and wishing for the Archer of 2019 to reappear as if by magic, but the reality is that he won’t.
No captain or coach would want to put a red line through a player of such devastating potential – one who is still only 28 – but Archer’s Test career is over.
If he cannot get through a four-over T20 stint every few days, what chance is there of him making it through a gruelling five-day match?
Maybe rest will enable him to return at some point, maybe T20 cricket or even 50-over cricket will not be beyond him, maybe we do see him again in an England kit, but as a Test cricketer? No.
It is a hard business being a fast bowler. Put one of sport’s most unnatural shapes under the most severe strain and it exacts a toll on anybody.
But being flogged into the bargain? Well, that is inviting trouble.
England over-raced a precious thoroughbred who should have been a diamond for a decade.
They are reaping now, what they sowed back then.
The outlook now is as bleak as it has ever been