Old Jofra Archer tweet on Bumrah resurfaces after England quick goes to Mumbai Indians
It’s been seven months since Jofra Archer last featured in a competitive cricket game. Even that was in a warm-up fixture for Sussex ahead of the Royal London One-Day Cup tournament. The year 2021 was filled with agony for the Barbados-born England fast bowler. Recurring injuries has forced him to remain on the sidelines.
Archer missed the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup and the Ashes series down under due to what seems like an ever-lasting elbow injury. He has already gone through two elbow surgeries and is under rehab. His return date to cricket is still unknown and according to the roadmap of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), their superstar fast bowler could return to the field only in June later this year.
Thus, he is unlikely to take part in the 2022 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) as well. He wasn’t retained by Rajasthan Royals (RR) and Archer didn’t even put up his name in the original list of players for the IPL mega auction. However, he made a late entry and listed himself at a base price of INR 2 crore.
He was given permission to enter the auction despite not being fully aware of his participation but teams were in with a risk of picking an injured player and not getting to replace him. Despite the uncertainties, Mumbai Indians (MI) went all out for Archer and were successful in bagging him. The five-time IPL champions were in a bidding war with Rajasthan Royals (RR) first and then with Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) before eventually bagging Archer for a sum of INR 8 crore.
Archer joins fellow world-class fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah in the MI ranks. Social media and the Twitter world went into a frenzy, only imaging the sight of watching Bumrah and Jofra bowled in tandem.
However, there is an Archer tweet for Bumrah which resurfaced after MI bought the Barbados-born England quick. The caption of Archer’s tweet which dates back to 2014 read, “Hate to seem [see] Bumrah bowl”.
Archer is unlikely to be fit for the upcoming 2022 IPL season but he could potentially pair up with Bumrah and form a fiery bowling attack for MI in the following seasons. Archer has played 35 IPL games (all for RR) and has returned with 46 wickets at an economy rate of 7.13.