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As in ‘returned’. He hasn’t got ankylosing spondylitis or anything. But is he match fit? Going into the third Test, we would argue that his greatest attribute is that he hasn’t just bowled 80 overs.
You may remember Jofra Archer from Test matches such as England against Australia at Lord’s in 2019, when he bounced the shit out of Steve Smith; or perhaps from England v India at Ahmedabad in 2021, when he was significantly outbowled by Joe Root.
We like Jofra Archer and we strongly disagreed with some of the insane whisperings about him. At the same time, ours is a qualified excitement. In particular, we’ve found it hard not to roll our eyes at the BBC repackaging some Chris Woakes quotes so that they could describe him as “a £100m cheat code”.
If you saw Archer renounce tiredness to discomfit (an understatment) peak form Steve Smith on his Test debut (on his debut!), you’ll still remember that sense of witnessing an out of the ordinary passage of play that you knew then and there would go down in the annals.
At the same time, that was six years ago and his Test record remains pretty damn thin for someone attracting daft headlines.
With 42 wickets at 31.04, Archer’s record is in fact slightly inferior to that of Ian Peebles, who took 45 wickets at 30.91 in the same number of matches (13) in the 1920s and 30s.
Maybe we haven’t been paying attention, but we don’t remember anyone ever suggesting that Ian Peebles was a £100m cheat code sort of player.
Maybe it didn’t need saying. Maybe it was just a given.
What Archer does have in his favour, in the context of this England v India series, is freshness. To watch England’s quick bowlers labouring in the last Test was to watch three men competing with each other for the blessed release of the bench.
Josh Tongue has emerged victorious. Have fun lying down for five days, Josh.
The third Test starts tomorrow (Thursday). Sign up for our email, frequent our comments section, enjoy Jofra and back our Patreon.
The post Jofra Archer’s back first appeared on King Cricket.
