News of Jofra Archer’s latest injury continues his rollercoaster England career, which has been full of remarkable achievements and matching disappointments.
Here, PA news agency looks at his highs and lows.
High – The Barbados-born seamer was selected for England’s 2019 World Cup a matter of months after becoming eligible following a modification of the ECB’s rules. He played a crucial role in their run to the final, ultimately taking the responsibility of closing out victory over New Zealand by bowling the decisive super over.
High – Fresh from his World Cup triumph, he was parachuted into England’s Test team for the second match of the 2019 Ashes. His impact was instant and eye-catching. He lit up the drawn contest with an unforgettable spell of hostile high-speed bowling, eventually felling the in-form Steve Smith with a 93mph bouncer that forced the Australian out of the next match with concussion.
Low – In his first overseas Test, Archer was called on to send down a gruelling 42 overs against New Zealand in Mount Maunganui in what would subsequently go down as an error of judgement from captain Joe Root. Archer was also criticised for riding a segway on the field before play on day one and suffered racial abuse from a home fan.
Low – Missed the last three Tests of the 2019-20 tour of South Africa through injury. Invited to prove himself with a fiery spell in the nets ahead of the final Test in Johannesburg, but only succeeded in exacerbating his problems and was later diagnosed with a stress fracture of the right elbow.
Low – Dropped from the second Test of the summer against the West Indies after breaching bio-security protocols with an unauthorised trip home during the first series back following the coronavirus outbreak. Director of cricket Ashley Giles warned his actions could have compromised the tour and cost the ECB “tens of millions of pounds”.
High – Offered a timely reminder of his class by being named as MVP of the Indian Premier League in November 2020, starring for Rajasthan Royals and confirming his status as world-class T20 bowler.
Low – After more injury problems, his first-class comeback for Sussex in May 2021 ended in confusing fashion as he took the field on day three only to declare himself unfit to bowl when asked by captain Ben Brown. Two bouts of surgery on his elbow and a stress fracture of the back followed, forcing his longest lay-off yet including two T20 World Cups and an Ashes tour Down Under.
High – After working with England Lions at a winter training camp, Archer made his long-awaited international comeback in the white-ball tour of South Africa in 2023. His second match back brought career-best ODI figures of six for 40 against the Proteas, and confirmation that he still had the pace and menace to succeed at the highest level.
Low – Handed a lucrative IPL contract by Mumbai Indians but managed just five games in the 2023 edition before flying home injured. Ruled out for the entire international summer of 2023 with news of another stress fracture in his right elbow.
IPL: Mumbai Indians condemned to last-place finish after 18-run defeat to Super Giants
Rohit Sharma's half-century was not enough for Mumbai Indians as they slipped to an 18-run defeat to Lucknow Super Giants at Wankhede Stadium.
The defeat consigned Mumbai to bottom place in the Indian Premier League for the second time in the space of three seasons, after losing 10 matches this year.
LSG were also left to lament their misfortune, as despite reaching 14 points, they did not qualify for the play-offs.
KL Rahul's 55 got the ball rolling for Lucknow, but their innings was ebbing out until Nicholas Pooran's dazzling 29-ball 75 took them to 214-6, despite the efforts of Nuwan Thushara (3-28) and Piyush Chawla (3-29), who stepped up in Jasprit Bumrah's absence.
Rohit's 38-ball 68 set the tone for what looked set to be a promising Mumbai chase, as he struck 13 boundaries around a short rain delay.
However, Mumbai went from 88 without loss to 120-5 in the space of six overs, leaving the tail with too much of a mountain to climb.
Data Debrief: Lucknow miss out
While Mumbai sit bottom of the pile yet again, it is a case of what might have been for LSG, who for the first time in their three-season history, failed to make the top four.
Fourteen points is often enough to get over the line and into the play-offs, but their poor net run rate of -0.667 means they miss out.
Tape ball programme can help England find unorthodox talent – Richard Gould
The England and Wales Cricket Board hopes to unearth a new seam of talent beyond the game’s traditional league structure with a national tape ball scheme that allows players to thrive without “whites, willow and leather”.
The practice of using a soft ball wrapped in electrical tape to aid swing and variable bounce is a common one in Asia, where it has helped produce express pace bowlers like Haris Rauf, Shaheen Afridi and spinners such as Rashid Khan and Shakib-al-Hasan, but has been slow to enter the mainstream conversation in the United Kingdom.
The Chance to Shine charity has long pioneered tape ball cricket as part of its engagement hubs and now, with the ECB keen to live up to its lofty aspiration of becoming the most inclusive team sport in the country, it is at the heart of a new core cities programme designed to engage ‘diverse communities in urban areas’.
Speaking at a launch event where games were hosted in a warehouse space in Birmingham, ECB chief executive Richard Gould was optimistic about reaching out to those with an interest in cricket but limited access to the pavilions and prepared pitches in the club setup.
“We talk about clubs with picket fences around them. In the past that has been seen as the preserve of the ECB. We’ve missed a complete trick on that,” he said.
“When we talk about the recreational game we’re not just talking about Premier League clubs and village cricket clubs now. We’re talking about all forms of cricket that take place.
“You can play the game anywhere, any time, with anybody, in any environment you want. You don’t have to have whites, willow and leather to do it. You can just pick up a bat and a ball and have some fun.”
As well as fulfilling its remit of reaching out to all comers at a grassroots level, Gould also believes there are benefits to finding cricketers with different styles who have learned the game outside the traditional, private-school heavy pathways.
“Without doubt there are,” he said. “We have to get out and try to find the talent. More to the point, we have to try and find talent in areas that we haven’t normally looked for it.
“I do think county pathways will be looking to make sure they don’t miss out on this talent. It’s just about punching through all of our normal procedures and finding ways to both get people in the game and unearthing that talent which may be unorthodox and great.”
Meg Lanning: Exercise obsession and not enough fuel led to Australia retirement
Former Australia captain Meg Lanning revealed her “obsession” with exercise and not eating enough precipitated her surprise international retirement late last year.
Lanning was at the helm of one of the most dominant eras the sport has ever seen but she missed last year’s Ashes for medical reasons and pulled the plug on her Australia career in November.
She opened up about her hidden health issues on the Howie Games podcast, explaining that running up to 90 kilometres a week coupled with eating two small meals a day led to her dropping from 64kg to 57kg.
View this post on Instagram“I was over-exercising and under-fuelling,” the 32-year-old said. “It wasn’t a physical thing. I’ve always been really physically active and liked that side of it, but it became a bit of an obsession.
“I’d maybe eat a couple of meals a day if I was lucky but they weren’t significant. Initially it didn’t start off as a deliberate thing, it just became a bit of a new normal.
“But it slowly crept into conscious decisions because essentially I felt good.
“I wasn’t getting injured like everybody was telling me I was going to do. It sort of just spiralled and I was in denial, even though everybody kept telling me something wasn’t quite right.
“I was not in a place to be able to go on tour and play cricket and give the commitment levels that were required for that Ashes series, mentally and physically.”
Lanning, who led Australia to five World Cup titles in total and Commonwealth Games glory in 2022, said her struggle was not officially diagnosed as an eating disorder.
“It wasn’t labelled as that but I was exercising a lot and I wasn’t eating enough to fuel that – it was a bit out of whack,” Lanning said.
“It was a bit of control because I felt very out of control with what my future looked like. I felt like I was in control of that and that made me feel better.”
Lanning sought help from medical professionals after also struggling with insomnia and continues to play domestically, while she has been signed for London Spirit for The Hundred this year.
“I dreaded night time because I knew I would go to bed and not be able to sleep,” she said. “That would make me so mad. I would just get more angry with myself. If you can’t sleep, you can’t do anything.
“I feel like I’m in a good spot now. Cricket is still part of what I do. But I wasn’t cut out for the international touring schedule and what came with all of that.”
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