Jofra Archer will not play in the entire season of IPL 2021
The Rajasthan Royals are getting bad news almost daily, Ben Stokes was earlier ruled out of the tournament due to a finger injury. After this England all-rounder, Liam Livingstone returned home due to bio bubble fatigue and now Jofra Archer will also not play in the entire season of IPL 2021
Archer had a glass in his hand while cleaning his fish tank in his home in January and underwent surgery on his hand recently to remove that piece of glass. Jofra Archer, despite having a piece of glass inside his finger, played two (Test and T20I) series in India.
It was expected that Jofra Archer would join Rajasthan team after 4 matches. But today the picture was cleared after the official statement of England Cricket Board and he was declared unfit to play IPL 2021.
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) confirmed this in a statement on Friday, saying, “Archer has undergone surgery on his middle finger and has just returned from bowling with speed this week, and now the ECB and Medical teams will continue to monitor their improvement. Archer will now pursue his training session starting next week, If he can continue bowling free of pain, he is expected to return to cricket in the next fortnight.
It is a big setback for Rajasthan Royals. Seeing the pace of Rajasthan Royals bowlers in the match from Bangalore, Sanju Samson wanted that Jofra Archer join the team as soon as possible but that could not happen. In the match from Bangalore, Rajasthan did not get any bowler wickets and the team had to face a severe defeat by 10 wickets.
Jofra’s stay would also give the team more variety as the team already has three left-arm fast bowlers. Jaydev Unadkat, Chetan Sakaria and Mustafizur Rahman. In the absence of Jofra, Chris Morris was handling the bowling with the right hand, but his performance has faded so far.
Rajasthan Royals have lost 3 out of 4 matches in this tournament. If the team gets more defeats in the upcoming matches, then this team will not be able to reach the playoffs once again.
Archer was Rajasthan’s most successful player last season. He was adjudged Most Valuable Player in IPL 2020 for scoring 20 wickets in 14 matches with a 6.55 economy and 113 runs with the bat.
At the same time, if Archer comes in the IPL, then he will have to stay in the mandatory seven-day quarantine, which will hamper his preparation and it will not be ideal for his return to the competition. In such a situation, both Rajasthan Royals and Archer can take mutual decisions.