It's difficult to imagine that Jofra Archer will play long-form cricket again: Kevin Pietersen

Former England cricketer and expert Kevin Pietersen has opined that the express pacer Jofra Archer, might not play the longest format ever following another injury blow to the pacer. The right-arm pacer on May 19 (Thursday) was ruled out of the 2022 English summer after suffering a stress fracture on his lower back.

Archer was planning to make his comeback in the cricket arena after recovering from a long-term elbow injury and play for his County side Sussex in the T20 Blast from next week. It must be noted that the express pacer has not played for his country England since March 2021.

The speedster was also planning to play some warm-up games before Sussex’s opening encounter against Glamorgan, but now he has been ruled out. Archer was also purchased by the five-time champions Mumbai Indians (MI) during the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 mega auction at a huge sum of INR 8 crore, despite not being available for the current edition due to his elbow injury.

It is terrible news for poor Jofra Archer: Kevin Pietersen

“It’s terrible news for poor Jofra Archer that he’ll miss the whole summer. He’s shown moments of brilliance for England and other teams and it’s just a horrible blow for him. It’s difficult to imagine him recovering from this to play long-form cricket again, that’s the horrible reality. Hopefully, he can still carve out a top-level white-ball career,” said Pietersen on Betway Insider.

“His stress fracture to the back follows a pattern of these injuries being sustained by England bowlers. I do think that the number of sports scientists can complicate things far too much. When I was playing, fast bowlers used to bowl a lot of overs in the nets and got bowling fit,” the former England cricketer added.

Talking about Archer’s numbers in Test cricket, the right-arm pacer has played 13 matches and has scalped a total of 42 wickets. Archer also has three five-wicket hauls to his name.