‘Unreal talent, a national hero’ - Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford lauds Jofra Archer
Archer has had to face racial abuse in the ongoing New Zealand tour.
Jofra Archer, the Barbados-born fast bowler, has come up the ranks at a brisk pace ever since he was fast-tracked into England’s national team. The speedster was one of the Three Lions’ star performers in the 2019 World Cup that the home team won for the maiden occasion. Soon after his stupendous show in the mega event, the pacer also broke into the Test team for the high-voltage Ashes.
He got a chance after two of the Brits’ seamers couldn’t make the cut for the Lord’s Test. On debut itself, Archer smacked Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne on the helmets. Though England couldn’t get home the urn, Archer was praised for his tormenting spells. Jofra is currently plying his trade in a Test series against New Zealand that England are trailing by a 0-1 margin.
Archer faces verbal abuse
In the opening game at the Bay Oval in Mount Maunganui, he could manage only BJ Watling’s wicket. With the bat in hand, he put up a fight and scored 30 off 50 in the second innings, but it wasn’t enough for the Brits to evade a defeat. Barring his team’s loss, the game wasn’t a memorable one even from his personal viewpoint as he had to encounter verbal abuse from a fan.
“A bit disturbing hearing racial insults today whilst battling to help save my team. The crowd has been amazing this week except for that one guy. The Barmy Army was good as usual,” Archer tweeted. He also tweeted about the person, hurling expletive from near the scoreboard area, but later deleted the tweet. New Zealand Cricket took immediate notice of the incident.
NZC released a statement, apologizing to Archer for the mishap. Later, Kane Williamson, the Kiwis’ skipper, also admitted that such an incident is uncalled for and he was shocked. In the meantime, Marcus Rashford, the striker of the Manchester United football team, hailed Archer as a national hero and an unreal talent.
He asked Jofra to keep going forward, keeping aside the bad incident. Replying to Jofra Archer, he took to Twitter and wrote, “Unreal talent and already a national hero. Deserve better bro so just keep doing your thing. You still up for that challenge?”
Here is Marcus Rashford’s tweet
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