England men’s managing director Rob Key is hopeful that fast-bowler Jofra Archer will be available to play in the 2024 Men’s T20 World Cup, happening in the USA and West Indies from June 1-29.
Archer has been out of competitive cricket since May last year after suffering the recurrence of a long-standing right elbow injury while playing for Mumbai Indians in the 2023 IPL. After missing out on Ashes and ODI World Cup, Archer was seen training with the England squad during their white-ball tour of the West Indies in December last year.
England will be defending the Men’s T20 World Cup they won in 2022 in Australia through their campaign opener against Scotland in Barbados on June 4. “Our plan is the T20 World Cup, building him up slowly. I saw him bowl in the Caribbean and it was like he’d never been away,” said Key to the BBC’s Tailenders podcast.
He also revealed that Archer was keen on playing IPL 2024, but wasn’t given the go-ahead for it. “I don’t want to get back to this thing where he plays and then goes down again. He wanted to play in the IPL, but we said not this time. Hopefully the years he has missed he can add to the end of his career. He is such a talent.”
Key, the former England cricketer, also called for dedicated windows to be made in the cricketing calendar for Test cricket in order to protect the oldest format of the game. His views come in the light of South Africa sending a weakened Test squad to New Zealand as the two-match series in February clashes with second season of SA20.
“Test cricket needs to have windows. There was a two-month window for the Ashes last summer – that could be one. There could be one at Christmas. There are all of these franchise competitions, like the IPL, and there is a global white-ball competition every year. Test cricket needs a window where you can’t play anything else.”
“The rest of us – England, Australia, India and the International Cricket Council in particular – need to look after the other countries. We have to stop being snobby about Test cricket. We have this view that you can’t play Test cricket unless you have played 150 red-ball games, or play in a certain way. No, just pick the most talented players,” he concluded.