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Jofra Archer is unlikely to play Test cricket before the summer of 2025, Rob Key has revealed, with England cricket managing the seamer’s return from injury carefully.
Archer has not featured in Test cricket in more than three years after a series of fitness set-backs, and last bowled in a first-class game in May 2021.
The 29-year-old featured in white-ball cricket for his country in Bangladesh last year before scans revealed a recurrence of a stress fracture in his elbow.
The Sussex fast bowler made his first steps towards a full playing return by featuring in a club game in his native Barbados late last year, and also participated in his county’s preseason trip to India, breaking the stump of teammate Oli Carter.
But Key, managing director of the England men’s team, insisted that the ECB will be cautious with Archer ahead of this summer’s T20 World Cup in the West Indies and USA.
Archer will feature only in white-ball cricket this summer before eyeing a Test return for a marquee home series against India and Ashes tour of Australia next year.
“He was at Sussex’s preseason [tour] in India, he bowled quickly out there and really well,” Key told Sky Sports. “He’s now gone back to the Caribbean where he is going to play some club cricket and stuff like that, all around getting himself ready for that T20 World Cup.
“Hopefully he’ll play in the Pakistan series, but it is always fingers crossed at the moment with Jofra. What we are going to do is take it slower, rather than go too quickly, so that we can get him back not just for a short period, but a long period.
“The whole plan with Jofra is he’s going to play white ball cricket this summer and then into the winter, and then hopefully next summer when we play India, and then onto the Ashes, we get him back. It’s a slow process just to get him back for all forms.”
Archer enjoyed an outstanding debut summer for England in 2019, starring in their home World Cup triumph before producing a number of eye-catching spells during the Ashes.
But elbow and back injuries have prevented further progress at international level, with the seamer making just 14 England appearances in all formats since the start of 2021.
England host Pakistan in a four-match T20I series in May before beginning their T20 World Cup campaign against Scotland in Barbados on 4 June.
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