da betsul： Fast bowler ruled out of remainder of winter itinerary after procedure in London
da pinnacle： ESPNcricinfo staff21-Dec-2021Jofra Archer will play no part in England’s tours to the Caribbean in January and March after undergoing a second operation on his injured right elbow.Archer has not played international cricket since March due to a stress fracture in that elbow and underwent surgery in May after an attempted comeback for Sussex.Further scans revealed he had suffered a recurrence of the injury, with the ECB confirming in August that it would rule him out of the T20 World Cup and the Ashes.He underwent a second operation in London on December 11 to “address the long-standing stress fracture of his right elbow,” the ECB said on Tuesday.”A return to cricket will be determined in time,” the statement added, “but Jofra will not be available for any of England’s remaining winter series.”Archer was not retained by his IPL franchise, Rajasthan Royals, ahead of the upcoming mega-auction and it remains to be seen if he will be fit enough to play any part in the 2022 edition.Archer had previously written in his newspaper column that he was hoping to be fit in time to play in the three-Test series against West Indies in March and his latest setback means he will not play international cricket between March 2021 and June 2022.While his latest procedure may cast doubt on his future as an all-format fast bowler, Archer himself stressed he needed to be “patient” when speaking to Australia’s Channel 7 during the first Ashes Test, days before his latest surgery.”Everything is moving forward quite nicely,” he had said. “It’s just a matter of waiting a little bit more and being a little bit more patient because I’m almost at the end of the road.”Either way, his absence has already been keenly felt by England across formats, following their elimination at the semi-final stage of last month’s T20 World Cup, and their struggles in the opening two Tests of the ongoing Ashes series.England’s initial strategy for winning the Ashes in Australia for the first time in 2010-11 had centred around a battery of 90mph bowlers, Archer foremost among them, alongside Mark Wood and Warwickshire’s Olly Stone, who was ruled out before the series began with a stress fracture of the back.With only Wood still available, and rested for this week’s second Test in Adelaide, England are already 2-0 down with three Tests to play, and could be on course to suffer their third whitewash in Australia in four tours of the country.Archer exploded onto the international stage from the moment he qualified to represent England in the spring of 2019, playing a pivotal role in the World Cup triumph with 20 wickets in 23.05 across the 11 matches before holding his nerve in the decisive Super Over in the final against New Zealand at Lord’s.He then announced his arrival in Test cricket in unforgettable style a month later, also at Lord’s, where he touched speeds of 96mph in an explosive performance that included a blow to Steve Smith’s helmet that caused Australia’s star batter to retire hurt in the format’s first concussion substitution, with Marnus Labuschagne taking his place.However, Archer bowled 44 overs in that fixture, and concerns about his workload in Test cricket were exacerbated three months later on England’s tour of New Zealand, where he sent down a further 42 overs in an innings defeat at Mount Maunganui.He then broke down on the morning of England’s New Year Test against South Africa in Cape Town later that same winter, with the first flaring-up of his elbow problem.He recovered to feature in four of England’s six Tests against West Indies and Pakistan in the bio-secure home summer of 2020 – missing the second match against West Indies after a breach of the teams’ strict bio-secure Covid protocols – and appeared to be back to his best by the winter, when he was named MVP at the 2020 IPL in the United Arab Emirates, with 20 wickets for Rajasthan at 18.25, conceding 6.55 runs per over.However, his problems resurfaced on England’s tour of India the following spring, in which he played two of the four Tests and required a cortisone injection to make it through the subsequent five-match T20I campaign.”I just want to get this injury sorted once and for all and that’s why I’m not looking that far ahead or at dates for a return to action,” he wrote at the time of his first elbow operation in May. “Because if I don’t get this right, I won’t play any cricket. Period.”
