England pacer Jofra Archer has confirmed his right elbow is now fully recovered and he is ready to play all three Tests of the upcoming series against West Indies if required.
Archer sustained a stress fracture to his right elbow during England’s tour of South Africa earlier this year and was subsequently ruled out of the Sri Lanka tour and the Indian Premier League before the Covid-19 pandemic struck.
He has now revealed that “there are no issues” with his right elbow. “This past fortnight has been a lot different from the previous few weeks of practice as the intensity when you introduce batters goes up without you even noticing,” Archer wrote in his column for Daily Mail. It meant I was blowing by the end of my first session. That’s what I would have wanted anyway after a lengthy lay-off and I feel as though I am where I need to be at the moment as we prepare to return to matches.
“Bowling has been a gradual progression but despite the fact that I was resting my elbow injury when we went into lockdown in March, I have followed similar loads to the other England Test bowlers. The first few days, I bowled four overs. Then in the second week, I upped it to six, a couple of weeks later it became two spells of between five and six overs at a time.
“So far everything feels like clockwork. Crunch in, crunch out, my body feels fresh, and there are no issues with my right elbow whatsoever, touch wood. When I run into bowl, I don’t think about it, just about bowling the ball as I always have done.”
Just quality all-round from Jofra Archer and Ollie Pope👌 pic.twitter.com/9PwwpXgjbS
— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) June 19, 2020
The 25-year-old was sent for a scan on his elbow last week and the report later confirmed that he had fully recovered from the fracture. He did concede, however, that he might not end up playing all three Tests as the matches will be “played in such a short space of time.”
“In fact, last week when I returned to London for training, I was sent for a scan to check the stress fracture had healed,” he wrote. “It was pretty much a box-ticking exercise as I have not experienced any pain and the pictures confirmed all is good.
“Despite the fact that the three matches of this series are played in such a short space of time, I actually think I could play all three — but obviously everyone will be a bit cautious in terms of workload, thinking about the body and what lies ahead. So it won’t be the ability to do it that will stop bowlers being ever-present but concern about the physical implications of doing so.”
