Rajasthan Royals in no rush to replace Jofra Archer as hope remains that England bowler could yet feature

NICK FRIEND: Archer was ruled out of England’s tour of Sri Lanka and the IPL with a stress fracture of his right elbow

• Archer ruled out of IPL and Sri Lanka tour
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Rajasthan Royals will not rush into signing up a replacement for Jofra Archer ahead of the Indian Premier League, with head coach Andrew McDonald holding out hope that the England seamer could yet play some part.

It was announced on Thursday that Archer would miss the forthcoming Test series against Sri Lanka and the subsequent Indian Premier League due to a low-grade stress fracture of his right elbow – an injury that restricted him to just a single Test during England’s tour of South Africa.

However, a tweet emerged on Rajasthan’s Twitter account shortly after the news broke, stating that the team would be liaising with the ECB regarding his recovery and that they ‘still hope to see him in a Royals jersey this season’.

McDonald admitted that, while unlikely, it is not out of the question that the World Cup winner, who took 11 wickets in the 2019 tournament, could yet feature in the latter stages of the competition – though only in the case of Archer recovering fully and being given the go-ahead.

“It’s probably a long shot as I sit here now with the information that we do have,” the Australian told The Cricketer. “But we won’t be in any rush to replace him, just in case things change.

“I think with any injury, there’s always an assumption and timeframes and recovery periods. Some are able to recover quicker than others as more information comes to light. Potentially, we’re optimistic that if there was an opportunity for him to be fit at some point in time, we would hope to see him in pink.

^{Jofra Archer has been diagnosed with a low-grade elbow stress fracture}

“But first and foremost, he’s a player of the ECB and that would need to unfold by working closely with them in terms of what it looks like and be guided by their medical staff. Injuries do have timeframes on them. Some people do heal quicker than others.

“Any time a world-class player goes down injured, first and foremost, you think of him and how they’re travelling. It will impact us as a team, there’s no doubt about that. But the key thing is that we wish Jofra a speedy recovery. We’re looking to work with the ECB in whatever that looks like and any way we could potentially help in that space as well.

“We are starting to get our heads around what that all potentially looks like. When we get more information, we can then make a better decision as all that unfolds. But first and foremost, we really feel for Jofra that he’s had this setback.”

Fit and available, Archer would likely have lined up alongside Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler and Royals captain Steve Smith as one of four overseas players in the franchise’s first-choice team.

Archer bowled more overs for England than anyone else in 2019... now, remind me about that lack of effort

England’s Tom Curran, Australian AJ Tye and West Indies seamer Oshane Thomas could all deputise in his absence, while young Indian fast bowler Kartik Tyagi has impressed at the U19 World Cup.

Were Rajasthan to replace Archer, that would end his participation in the competition. Replacement players cannot be brought in as a temporary measure.

“We will be able to take a bit of time to assess and to formulate which direction we go with if Jofra’s out for the whole tournament,” McDonald added. “That’s the other thing – if he was able to play the back end, then we can’t replace him.

“We feel as though we have most bases covered. There are not too many players out there that are like Jofra Archer and there are not too many left in the marketplace, so it’s clear that we’re not going to be able to replace like for like.

“We will be assessing all of that, but this is not an uncommon situation – teams lose players in tournament, pre-tournament, at the business end, in finals. You have always got to have the ability to shift. That’s the art of putting a balanced squad together and we feel as though we’ve done that.” 

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