Jofra Archer out for the season after suffering fresh injury blow

The England and Sussex seamer has a stress fracture to his lower back, with no timeframe attached to his return to action

Jofra Archer's cruel run of injuries has continued with news a stress fracture to his lower back will keep him out for the entire 2022 English season.

The 27-year-old was on course to make his long-awaited return from a second bout of elbow surgery for Sussex in the upcoming T20 Blast.

But this fresh injury has put paid to those ambitions almost 10 months to the day since his last outing. 

An ECB statement read: "After being diagnosed with a stress fracture to the lower back, England and Sussex seamer Jofra Archer has been ruled out for the rest of the season.

"No timeframe has been set for his return. A management plan will be determined following further specialist opinion over the coming days."

It is the latest aborted comeback in the last 12 months for Archer, who underwent procedures on his elbow in May and December of 2021.

His last appearance came for Sussex in a T20 warm-up against Oxfordshire at Hove on July 20.

Archer has missed the last two Indian Premier League seasons, bilateral series across the formats against New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, India, Australia and West Indies and the men's T20 World Cup.

^{Archer continued his recovery during England's tour of the West Indies (Gareth Copley/Getty Images)}

Since his 2019 international debut, Archer has played 13 Tests, 17 ODIs and a dozen T20Is for England.

Sussex had hoped Archer would make his competitive return to action for their T20 campaign and had confirmed him as the backup skipper to Ravi Bopara.

And last week, he was at Hove to have promotional headshots ahead of the competition which the Sharks start against Glamorgan at Hove on May 26.

Archer has also been visible practising on the outfield between sessions during the club's LV= Insurance County Championship campaign.

The news removes any hope he would be available for England to face New Zealand, India or South Africa across the formats this summer, while it surely plunges his involvement in Pakistan and the T20 World Cup in Australia into extreme doubt.

Writing in The Daily Mail as recently as earlier this month, Archer said of his injury nightmare: "It's natural for anyone to worry about the future in that kind of situation, but not having to chase a contract gave me the time to rest properly.

"Suppose I had rushed my comeback, I might have messed things up more or injured something totally unrelated to what I had done previously and then I would be even further down the pecking order."

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