England will continue to take a cautious approach in easing back Jofra Archer into international cricket by managing his workload regularly.
After a long injury hiatus, Archer finally returned to action in a T20I series against Pakistan earlier this year. He played in the T20 World Cup, taking eight wickets in as many matches at an economy of 7.22 in England’s semi-final run. After that, he missed the second half of the Blast group matches for Sussex and was even rested twice during The Hundred.
Since then, he has featured in two matches, starting with the T20 Blast quarter-final for Sussex. Another came during England’s first match of three-match T20I series against Australia recently. He was part of the first match, bowling 3.3 overs before being rested for the second. He returned for the final game, but it was washed out.
England will next play a five-match ODI series against the same opponents, starting Thursday (September 19). Jos Buttler, who has now been ruled out of the ODIs as well, revealed that his team would be wary of not rushing Archer's comeback given his history of recurring injuries.
"Jofra will have to be managed throughout the series," Buttler said to Sky Sports on Sunday. "He's played a really good stint now of T20 cricket, but obviously you can only bowl four overs in there. There's a jump in intensity getting loads up to taking full part in an ODI - and of course, as an England fan, to push those loads up hopefully to get back into the Test arena as well."
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Trescothick: Archer knows what he's doing
Interim white-ball head coach Marcus Trescothick echoed Buttler's words, saying Archer was "comfortable" with England's plan to manage his workload.
"He knows the plan. It's discussed long in advance of picking the team on each day. We know what we're doing with him, and where we're going. He's comfortable: he knows what he's doing," Trescothick said.
He added: "That's a bigger structure, in terms of what we're trying to do with Jofra. You come into the series knowing what we've got and what we can do with him. That's an agreed plan between the coaches, directors, physios and all the different people. We'll still be managing him [in the ODIs] - exactly the same thing."
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