England white-ball coach Matthew Mott revealed that England is willing to make a gamble on Jofra Archer’s fitness for the upcoming ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup in India by managing his workload through the tournament.
Archer’s injury issues date back to early 2020 when he sustained a stress fracture that side-lined him for the first half of the year. In early 2021, he had to go under the knife following another injury at home. A stress injury on his back in May 2022 put him on the shelf for the entirety of the year. He finally returned to international cricket earlier this year and played seven matches (four ODIs, three T20Is) against South Africa and Bangladesh. He showed signs of finding his old rhythm, registering his career-best ODI figures (6/40) in just his second game back against South Africa. But the 28-year-old suffered faced another hurdle as his injury issues stared at him yet again. Archer was ruled out of the Ashes 2023 series as well as the Indian Premier League 2023. Amidst his ongoing injury concerns, Mott indicated that chances remain ideal of his return to the mega tournament. “There is a high chance that we will take a risk on a proven performer [like Archer] that has done it on the world stage.
We are planning for him to be available. Obviously, a lot of things have to go his way and it will be a tight timeline but with players like that you are going to give them every opportunity to prove their fitness, and so we will keep an open mind,” Mott said.
“It would be a big ask for him to play every game, so we would have to target specific ones, but we are big on ball speed for India, we feel like that’s a really important asset for us to have out there and it will be good to see Mark Wood, who had such an impact in the Ashes, do the same with the white ball,” Mott added. England will kick off their World Cup campaign on 5 October against New Zealand at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad in what will be a rematch of the 2019 Final.
