Jofra Archer missed out as England Cricket Board (ECB), on Sunday (March 21), announced their squad for the upcoming three-match ODI series in India which gets underway from March 23 in Pune. Meanwhile, Jake Ball, Chris Jordan and Dawid Malan will travel to Pune as backup players.
The board also confirmed the Rajasthan Royals star will miss the start of IPL 2021 as the medical team will assess the player, develop a treatment plan and a return-to-play schedule in due course.
England head coach Chris Silverwood said that it was a ‘joint decision’ made by both parties and talked about the importance of getting to the bottom of Archer’s injury and get him fit and fine as soon as possible.
“Jofra Archer is returning to the UK for further management and investigation of his right elbow injury. It was a joint decision. Both parties have put England first, basically. He needs to get this right. He needs some time to do that so we’ve made space to make sure that we gave him the best chance of being successful for England,” Silverwood was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo.
“All parties agreed on that, and obviously Jofra was very keen on that as well. He wants to be at the World Cup and he wants to be at the Ashes. It wasn’t a difficult decision by either side to be honest – I think it was a sensible decision,” he added.
“It is very satisfying and it shows how passionate Jofra is about playing for England and how much he enjoys playing for England. Equally we respect that, and we enjoy having him around, so whatever we can do to help him, we will.”
While the elbow injury is set to sideline him for the ODI series and the first part of the IPL, Silverwood is not too worried about surgery and believes he will be up and ready soon.
“Obviously it’s disappointing for Jofra and it’s disappointing for us, but it’s clearly something that we need to get to the bottom of. We’ll make sure that he’s got every resource around him that we can and get to the bottom of what’s going on, and hopefully get him back fighting fit for the future for England,” Silverwood said.
“He’s going to miss the early stages of the IPL but we’ll be led by the medics on where we go from there, really. The important thing is that we get it cleared up. We’ll get him to see the specialist and make sure that we put everything in place for Jofra to have a long, successful international career for England in all formats.”
