Jofra Archer ruled out for English summer due to back stress fracture

English pacer Jofra Archer's saga with his injuries does not end anytime soon. He has missed out on consistent competitive cricket for the last couple of years and has suffered a new injury setback. A fresh back stress fracture is set to extend his prolonged injury layoff this year, as he will be missing out on the upcoming English summer. He last played for England in March 2021 before being ruled out with an elbow injury. While he was hoping for a comeback in T20 Blast for Sussex this month, a new back problem has spoiled his return this year, which could take a toll and jeopardise his career.

In the meantime, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has not set a timeframe for his return. At the same time, "a management plan will be determined following further specialist opinion over the coming days." In the past 14 months, Archer has had three surgeries and made aborted comebacks, while he had to miss out on the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 entirely after being roped in by record five-time former champion Mumbai Indians (MI) for ₹8 crore during the IPL 2022 Mega Auction.

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Earlier this month, Archer had admitted that the persistent injuries, including the latest one, might force him to rethink if his body could handle the pressure of Frist-Class (FC) cricket. Also, it has put the ECB in a headache, with a number of its pacers, including Sam Curran, Chris Woakes, Ollie Robinson, Mark Wood, Olly Stone, Saqib Mahmood and Matthew Fisher, missing out on England's Test squad due to injuries.

"It's a concern, and trying to find out why this is happening is something that we need to look into. We need to make sure that, hopefully, it never happens again. But, as you know, with all fast bowlers, these are the things that do happen - stress fractures in particular," reckoned ECB's new Managing Director of Men's Cricket, Robert Key.