The fast bowler has been ruled ineligible for the remainder of the Indian Premier League season and will return to England immediately to recover from his latest elbow surgery and increase his chances of playing in the Ashes.
Archer has only appeared in five of Mumbai Indians’ first ten IPL games. He will now miss the team’s four remaining regular season games, including Tuesday’s match at Wankhede Stadium against Royal Challengers Bangalore, as well as the postseason semifinals. He underwent minor elbow surgery in Belgium last month and has not felt comfortable despite returning to action quickly.
“Archer has been recovering from right elbow surgery,” the England and Wales Cricket Board stated in a statement. “However, playing through the discomfort in the hopes that it will subside has proved difficult. To improve his prospects of recovery, he will return to the UK for rest and rehabilitation.
More than three years have passed since Archer’s elbow injury first flared up, compelling him to miss a Test match in South Africa in January 2020, and two years have passed since the initial surgery intended to treat it.
The England bowling coach at the time, Jon Lewis, dismissed this as “a small blip on his journey.”
Archer underwent surgery on the same joint for the fifth time last month, and his prolonged struggles with the relatively light workloads of Twenty20 cricket make his participation in this summer’s Ashes, which begins in less than five weeks, increasingly unlikely. However, his early return from India will allow the ECB’s medical department to monitor his recovery with this goal and possibly the 50-over World Cup in the autumn in mind. The ECB believes Archer can play Twenty20s, but he would recuperate faster if he didn’t.
Following the announcement of his latest surgery, the 28-year-old stated that he had been enduring “a worrying and troubling time” but that he remained committed to returning to England’s Test squad. Archer stated in an interview with Cricinfo last month, “It’s a monumental year. I believe that everything is interconnected; everything interacts with everything else. If I can survive the IPL, I’ll be in excellent shape to play in the Ashes, and then everything else will fall into place.”
This man has the heart of a lion,” England Test captain Ben Stokes wrote on Instagram after Archer’s loss. We are aware of what you have endured and what you have put your body through.”
The appointment of former England international and broadcaster Ebony Rainford-Brent as a non-executive director of the ECB for a three-year term will be ratified at Wednesday’s AGM.
Richard Thompson, chairman of the ECB, remarked, “Ebony is a one-of-a-kind talent, a trailblazer who was a victor on the pitch and has accomplished so much off of it.” “Her Ace Programme has already had a significant impact on creating opportunities for young people from Black communities, and she shares my impatience to make additional strides towards developing a truly inclusive sport.”
Pete Ackerley joins Rainford-Brent on the board. Among his many previous positions in the sport was a stint as the ECB’s head of development. He is the British American Football Association’s CEO and Wembley National Stadium Trust’s board chairman.
