The Managing Director of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) Rob Key reckons that Jofra Archer’s decision to play the next season of the Indian Premier League will affect his Test comeback.
Key feels that Archer’s IPL stint will push him two months behind his scheduled Test comeback. However, he understands the player’s decision given the new rules of the IPL put in place for the upcoming seasons.
According to the new rules, a player needed to register for the IPL 2025 mega auction to be available for the subsequent mini auctions. As a result, the ECB left it to Archer to decide about his future and the fast bowler chose to appear for mega auction.
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Rob Key speaks on Jofra Archer’s Test comeback
While speaking during an interview with Wisden Cricket Weekly’s Patreon channel, Rob Key spoke about the prospect of Jofra Archer’s comeback and how his IPL stint will push behind his comeback in red-ball cricket.
Key had specific plans for Archer which involved in the latter playing some County championship matches in order to be ready for Test cricket. He initially wanted Archer to miss the IPL.
“Jofra (Archer) is always brilliant to deal with. We were like, ‘The best thing might be to miss the IPL this year and get yourself ready, and we’ll start building your loads up… if you can get through a bit of Championship cricket, and then you can start the Test summer. He was happy with that,” Key said in the interview.
However, the new IPL rules prompted the fast bowler to make himself available for the next season. Key maintained that it would have been difficult to keep Archer away from the IPL since he has already started bowling at full tilt.
“But we had to look and see what India were going to do with (the IPL’s rules). We thought that we could make the case that he’s still in part of a managed workload period,” Key noted.
“The problem with that was he was then bowling with two slips and a gully and bowling 90mph in the T20s in the West Indies, so it’s hard to make the case that he’s injured when he’s bowling like that,” he added.
Jofra Archer’s decision to appear in the IPL
Speaking further about the new rules, Rob Key didn’t want England’s premier fast bowler to miss a big cash amount by missing the IPL. So, he left the decision on Jofra Archer to decide, and he eventually decided to appear for the mega auction.
“They [the BCCI] came back after a bit of back-and-forth and said, ‘Well no, he won’t be allowed to go into this year, next year from then on. So then you start thinking that could be about $4 million that he loses out on there, and I don’t then feel… then it’s on him, really,” Key claimed.
Rob Key feels IPL will push back Jofra Archer’s Test comeback
While Jofra Archer is all set to play IPL 2025, Rob Key believes that it will push back his Test comeback by two months since he won’t be able to prepare for red-ball cricket. But Archer decided the best decision would be to appear in IPL 2025.
“We believe there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge for that, but we still think he’ll be alright. We’ll just be a couple of months behind… So then Jofra decided that he felt the best thing for him was to go into the IPL [auction], which we had no issue with, and then do that loading throughout the IPL and get himself ready for the Test series that way,” Key said.
Jofra Archer was signed by Rajasthan Royals for INR 12.5 crore after a bidding war with Mumbai Indians. He has earlier played for Rajasthan Royals before going to Mumbai Indians. Now, he is back to his former franchise and will be hoping to make a mark.