Nearly six years after Jofra Archer made his Test debut against Australia at Lord’s he will finally return after England confirmed that he will replace Josh Tongue as the only change to the team so comprehensively beaten by India at Edgbaston last week.
Archer is a man of few words and, as he has battled through a string of injuries across those intervening years, also not a lot of action. So the conversation that confirmed his return to Test cricket was entirely typical, said England’s captain, Ben Stokes: “I went: ‘Are you ready this week?’ And he went: ‘Been ready.’ That was literally it.”
