Jofra Archer Not Included in England’s World Cup Squad Due to Injury

Jofra Archer, a prominent cricketer, has been left out of England’s World Cup squad due to a time constraint in proving his fitness. He will travel to India as a reserve player unless a remarkable recovery happens. Archer was a key player in England’s victory in the World Cup four years ago, but he hasn’t played since this year’s IPL due to an elbow stress fracture.

Check Out England’s 15-man Squad for the ICC Cricket World Cup here.

Luke Wright, who is both an England selector and a former teammate of Archer at Sussex, mentioned that while England was eager for Archer to be fit, they didn’t want to rush his recovery process. They were cautious about not pushing him to play before he was ready.

Wright said, “There has got to be a duty of care with Jof. We know how desperate we all are to have him – there’s no doubt about that – but we’ve also got to get it right for him. He’s been very unfortunate with these injuries… regarding the World Cup, unfortunately, we’re just running out of time.”

“He’s not going to come round quite quick enough, especially for the first part of the World Cup. There is a duty of care with him. We have to make sure that long-term, we get it right because we see him as a huge asset for a long time. As much as the temptation is to try and rush him in and get him in for the start of this World Cup, unfortunately, we’re just going to run out of time.”

England has selected six primary seamers in their provisional 15-man squad for the World Cup. They anticipate a tough workload for their seamers due to a packed schedule, with nine group games in 37 days and the need to travel between venues in India.

Considering the history of injuries among their first-choice fast bowlers, England hopes that Archer might be able to contribute in the latter part of the tournament if any of the current bowlers get injured.

Wright further explained, “I don’t think we can, unfortunately, have him in the squad to start with. Best-case scenario for Jof really at the moment would probably be [that he is] available for the back-end of the tournament. That’s best-case scenario, which obviously, in a squad of 15, is going to leave us quite light.”

While there is a possibility that Archer could play later in the tournament if circumstances align, the priority remains his full recovery. Wright stressed that pushing him prematurely would not be wise. The decision not to include Archer is due to the concern that he might not be available for a significant part of the tournament, and time constraints make it challenging to accommodate him.

Here is England’s provisional squad for the World Cup (They can make changes in this squad before ICC Cricket World Cup):

Jos Buttler (captain), Moeen Ali, Gus Atkinson, Jonny Bairstow, Sam Curran, Liam Livingstone, Dawid Malan, Adil Rashid, Joe Root, Jason Roy, Ben Stokes, Reece Topley, David Willey, Mark Wood, Chris Woakes.

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