He was once the brightest star in English cricket – but now, Jofra Archer has admitted he could hang up the boots if he suffers another injury setback.
The 29-year-old quick terrorised Australia five years ago in The Ashes, with his extreme pace and lethal bounce proving to be a massive mountain for the batters to overcome.
In the years that have followed however, Archer has struggled to maintain his fitness and hasn’t featured in the Test arena since early-2010.
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His last appearance for England in white-ball cricket came over a year ago, with injuries plaguing his chance to spearhead the side’s attack in key series or tournaments.
With the T20 World Cup on the horizon, Archer is hopeful of returning to the national team – but acknowledged any further heartache could lead to an early retirement.
“It’s been a while and honestly, I don’t know if I’ve got another stop-start year in me,” he said during an interview with the Athlete’s Voice podcast.
“That’s the truth, I don’t know if I’ve got another one. I haven’t played cricket for a whole 12 months as yet. Last year I played from January to May. I think the year before that, I played maybe one or two games for Sussex.
“I’ve had a whole year of nothing.”
Archer isn’t expected to play red-ball cricket this year, with his focus solely on pulling on the England kit in the major T20 event in the United States and Caribbean.
The right-arm speedster is remaining hopeful of a recall, but knows there is still a long way to go before the June tournament.
“Come the first game in June, I really do want to be in the team,” Archer said.
“The last two years have been really stop-start, so I just think that, you know, everyone’s going to just take it a bit easy.
“Worst-case scenario, I don’t really want to think about this, but even if I don’t make it to the World Cup for whatever reason, there’s still the T20 Blast, there’s still The Hundred.”
