Jofra Archer has been in talks with England Test captain Ben Stokes during the SA20 series in South Africa and has reportedly informed him of his desire to play in the highly-anticipated Ashes series starting in June.
Archer has been on fire during the SA20 games, clocking speeds of over 90 mph consistently and even registering a top speed of 92.4 mph in one match. While he hasn’t played a Test match for England since the India tour in 2021, he’s now set to return to the national side, but his workload will be closely monitored to ensure he’s fit and ready for the Ashes.
Archer also featured in one of England’s warm-up games in November, where Stokes said, “We’ve got to be careful not to rush him back because we don’t want to see Jofra on the sidelines for this amount of [time] again. Hopefully, we can have Jofra fit and ready for the Ashes. That’s something we’re looking at and it would be great to have him available for selection.”
The England Cricket Board had originally planned for Archer to only play two games for MI Cape Town in the SA20, but the franchise wanted to make the most of their signing and he ended up playing four matches. With the IPL also on the horizon before the Ashes, the ECB will wait and see how Archer fares in the ODI series against South Africa before making any decisions about his future participation.
