Sam Curran is backing team-mate Jofra Archer to return with his “fear factor” still very much in tact as the seamer prepares to make his long-awaited England comeback this week.
Archer has not played top level cricket in more than a year after suffering a recurrence of a stress fracture in his elbow at last season’s Indian Premier League, but is back in the England squad for this month’s T20 series against Pakistan.
The first of the four-match series takes place at Headingley on Wednesday, with Archer pencilled in to play as he looks to prove his fitness ahead of the summer’s T20 World Cup, for which he has already been included in a provisional 15-man squad.
England have been carefully managing Archer’s return, allowing him to play club cricket in Barbados before a brief run out for Sussex’s second XI at Beckenham last week, but Curran believes the 29-year-old will quickly be back making his mark in international cricket.
“It's incredibly exciting to have a player of his quality. I'm sure England fans and players are extremely buzzed to have him back," he said.
"He's obviously got that extra pace and fear factor we can bring to opposition. We all hope his injuries are behind him now. Jof's had a really tough couple of years, we all hope he can come back and do what he does for England and bring the A game that we know he's got.”
The four games against Pakistan are England’s only warm-up matches before flying to the Caribbean next month and the leadership duo of head coach Matthew Mott and captain Jos Buttler are determined to make the most of the series as they plan for the defence of the trophy they won in 2022.
Mott, who was absent from Monday’s training session for family reasons, is under pressure for his job following last year’s disastrous World Cup defence in the 50-over format.
In a bid to avoid a repeat of the muddled build-up to that tournament, England ordered all of their players back early from the IPL to ensure a full squad is available for fine-tuning throughout the Pakistan series.
“That's the main reason we all came back," said Curran, who has been in India playing for Punjab Kings.
"The messaging from Jos and the coaching staff was they wanted to get the group back together and we probably didn't have that last time. We've been apart for a while so these games are going to be really crucial. We want to be playing as a team and get used to our roles.
"There's a lot of buzz around the group, it seems like we're back to our energy and it seems like the boys are really fizzed about this trophy hopefully coming back."
