If you started following cricket recently, you might wonder why the fuss about Jofra Archer missing this year’s Ashes. A player with 13 Tests for England, the last well over two years ago, and 42 wickets at an average of 31.
Those who watched four years ago will know why Archer is imprinted on an Australian cricket consciousness as firmly as on England’s. His earlier work in Australia’s domestic T20 league had already introduced an incredible athlete in the field and a force with the ball. Then he showed up in the second Ashes match of 2019 in place of the injured Jimmy Anderson.
A few weeks earlier he had won England a first men’s World Cup, a nerveless yorker from the last ball of a deciding Super Over keeping Martin Guptill to one run when New Zealand needed two. It deservedly sits atop Archer’s highlights reel. But in the age of T20 proliferation, finding a bowler who can deliver one ball under pressure to end a game is possible. Far more rare is one who can do what he did on Test debut at Lord’s.
Archer took conventional wickets either side of a spell of rare hostility, at the time the fastest recorded by an England bowler, routinely hitting 96mph (154kph). His short-ball barrage was enough to unsettle, and eventually force from the field, a batting great who had just made twin tons at Edgbaston and was seemingly cruising to three in a row at Lord’s.
Steve Smith has pushed back more than once, emphasising that Archer never got him out. But he did knock Smith out, out of one and a half Tests in the guts of the series, of which Australia lost one and nearly the other. Before Smith was hit, he was taking on Archer’s short bowling in unusually dramatic style, giving the sense he needed to fight fire with fire.
At the ground you could clearly feel the awe of the crowd at this contest, every spectator locked on, a crackle of electricity making hairs on forearms rise in a standing ovation. Massed clouds descended from nowhere for that hour as though the elements were attuned to the drama. When the moment dissipated, so did they.
Another part of it all was aesthetic. Archer seemed to flow to the bowling crease, a liquid run-up, whispering over the turf without disturbing the grass. He vaulted over his planted front leg, all of that momentum coming through, his raised arm hyperextending back and then flinging forward, giving that extra zing to the ball that others could not match, the same physics as the sidearm that coaches use in the nets. It was an illusion masking all of the work involved, making it look so easy, so effortless.
The excitement wasn’t just about pace. It was about skill and depth of understanding in a bowler just starting out. He showed it in his next assignment at Headingley, bringing his speed down a touch under thick slate skies for a masterclass of seam bowling, moving the ball with constant menace to nick edges and smash pads until he had six for 45.
England followed up by being bowled out for 67, then chasing 359, but the only reason they were close enough to pull off the miracle after that first failure was Archer keeping Australia in check on the first day.
Bowling in a whisper suited Archer. During his press commitments that summer, even standing next to him, you had to lean in to hear him speak. He was shy, no projection in that voice. He behaved similarly in most of his time on the field.
Some of Australia’s worst media outlets got stuck into him after he struck Smith because Archer walked back to his end of the pitch instead of adding to the traffic around the batter. That was him all over, removing himself from the action to stay somewhere on the fringe.
It is cruel then that the elbow that gave his bowling such power, the bend and flex and whip back down the pitch, is now what keeps giving way. A recurrence of rare stress fractures in that joint raises the possibility that Archer will never be able to bowl like he once did. No wonder his distress has seen him lose some of his usual tranquility when dealing with media reports on his progress.
Four years ago, it looked like Archer might be a generationally defining player for Test cricket. Instead, he has barely had the chance to develop his game. He may yet be back, he may take an IPL offer to bowl four-over spells for life, he might be unable to do either.
All anyone else can do is hope for the best while he does the work to find out. The building anticipation of an Ashes rematch with Smith and company this time has been extinguished.
Even those with an Australian allegiance must feel that the series will be poorer for the lack of it.
