England MD Rob Key on Jofra Archer’s IPL stint and how that could have a knock-on effect on his imminent test return.
England MD Rob Key optimistic that fast bowler will be ready to play ‘one or two’ Tests against India.
Jofra Archer’s choice to play in the IPL next year would put him “a couple of months behind” schedule in his intended Test comeback, Rob Key has acknowledged. The ECB’s management, however, felt powerless to refuse him the chance to receive two seasons’ worth of pay due to the league’s new regulations.
Archer has been injury-free in 2024. However, he hasn’t participated in a Test since February 2021 because of elbow and back problems. Ben Stokes stated that Archer is still “very interested” in playing Test cricket. He signed an extension to his central contract this week, which extends his deal beyond the 2025–26 Ashes. This increased his prospects of making a comeback.
In order to increase his workload before England’s Test series against India in June and July, Key, the managing director of England, had originally intended for him to play for Sussex in the County Championship in April and May. However, Archer would have been disqualified from the upcoming mini-auction as well. It would have a considerable financial cost, had he missed the IPL’s mega-auction under the new rules.
The ECB argued that they were still managing Archer’s injury. That meant even though his name was on the original longlist of names sent to IPL teams prior to the auction. He was left off of the shortlist. However, he was added back to the shortlist and purchased by the Rajasthan Royals for INR 12.5 crore (£1.18 million) following clarification from the BCCI.
“Jofra is always brilliant to deal with,” Key said, in an interview on Wisden Cricket Weekly’s Patreon channel. “We were like, ‘The best thing might be to miss the IPL this year and get yourself ready. We’ll start building your loads up. If you can get through a bit of Championship cricket, and then you can start the Test summer. He was happy with that.
“But we had to look and see what India were going to do with [the IPL’s rules]. We thought that we could make the case that he’s still in part of a managed workload period. The problem with that was he was then bowling with two slips and a gully and bowling 90mph in the T20s in the West Indies, so it’s hard to make the case that he’s injured when he’s bowling like that.
“They [the BCCI] came back after a bit of back-and-forth and said. ‘Well no, he won’t be allowed to go into this year, next year from then on. So then you start thinking that could be about $4 million that he loses out on there, and I don’t then feel… then it’s on him, really. You say, ‘Jof, what do you want to do? This is your career, your life. You’ll still be able to play Test cricket.’
“We believe there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge for that, but we think he’ll be alright. We’ll just be a couple of months behind… So then Jofra decided that he felt the best thing for him was to go into the IPL [auction]. This was something which we had no issue with. And then do that loading throughout the IPL and get himself ready for the Test series that way.”