The star seamer Jofra Archer was left out of England’s team for the home series against New Zealand, which doubles as the tentative shortlist for the 2019 ODI World Cup in India, because he has “run out of time” to show his health after suffering a stress fracture of the elbow earlier this year. Despite being invited to travel to India with the team, Archer will only be serving as a “traveling reserve,” as announced by England selector Luke Wright.
“There has got to be a duty of care with Jof,” Wright said. “We know how desperate we all are to have him – there’s no doubt about that – but we’ve also got to get it right for him. He’s been very unfortunate with these injuries… regarding the World Cup, unfortunately, we’re just running out of time.”
“He’s not going to come round quite quick enough, especially for the first part of the World Cup. There is a duty of care with him. We have to make sure that long-term, we get it right because we see him as a huge asset for a long time. As much as the temptation is to try and rush him in and get him in for the start of this World Cup, unfortunately, we’re just going to run out of time.”
After topping England with wickets during the 2019 World Cup, which the hosts won, Archer has been out with an elbow injury since the middle of the IPL 2023.
Without him, England has selected six fast bowlers for its World Cup preliminary roster, which must be finalized by September 28. Given the recent injury history of the English seamers, though, the squad is keeping its fingers crossed that Archer will be fit to play by the middle of the tournament.
“I don’t think we can, unfortunately, have him in the squad to start with,” Wright said. “Best-case scenario for Jof really at the moment would probably be [that he is] available for the back-end of the tournament. That’s best-case scenario, which obviously, in a squad of 15, is going to leave us quite light.
“The last thing we want to do is really to put a massive time on him and try to push him and force him into playing before he does. We’ve got to get him right, first and foremost.
“But is there an opportunity or a place where potentially he could play at the back-end of a tournament, if all things go well and there was an injury? Yes, there’s a potential chance. But obviously, a lot of things have still got to go right with this rehab before then.
“When you look at that squad, you cannot have a bowler that might not be available for the second half and definitely not for the first half. Unfortunately, we couldn’t do it. If something miraculous happens with him, we have time to change things but I just don’t see it happening. It is just coming too soon and we can’t rush this decision on Jofra this time.”
