World Cup 2019: Virat Kohli calls Jofra Archer England’s X-Factor

The ICC World Cup 2019 begins on May 30 with England, the hosts taking on South Africa, semifinalists of the 2015 edition. The hosts are widely considered to be the favourites to winning the tournament given the advantage of playing in familiar conditions, pitches that suit their style of play, excellent record at home and no.1 ranking on ICC’s ODI team ratings.

One more wonderful addition to the already mighty Three Lions’ side is Barbados born Jofra Archer, a lad who can bowl above 150kmph with ease and has a good game with the bat as well. He has put up a display of his skills in various T20 leagues all over the world like the Big Bash League and Indian Premier League. ECB even changed their qualification rules to ensure that Archer was available for the World Cup.

His amazing talent and skills have been acknowledged all over the world and Indian captain and one of the modern greats of the game, Virat Kohli had also admitted that Archer could make a big difference for the home side in the tournament.

Archer wants to get Kohli out

Jofra Archer’s inclusion in the England team came at the cost of David Willey who was piped for the spot in the World Cup and caused quite a storm within the ranks in the English cricket. Archer made his England debut against Pakistan recently and impressed everyone with the speed and bounce he was able to generate even on wickets that were batting paradise.

Even Virat Kohli, the Indian captain, who has faced him in the IPL tournament, praised the pacer. “He (Archer) holds a skill-set that’s very different from anyone else. He can generate a lot of pace, which can be intimidating. You don’t really expect that because of his run-up. The way he’s come about in the IPL the last couple of years I’ve seen him, there’s a good reason why he was fast-tracked into playing for England in a tournament like the World Cup,” Kohli said at the captains’ interaction ahead of the start of the tournament.

Earlier, Archer had made a wild comment saying that he would like to take Virat Kohli’s wicket since he wasn’t able to do so during the IPL 2019.

“Did he say that? I had no idea – that’s news to me. It’s news to Morgs as well. We don’t really focus on these things. We don’t really focus on whether an individual wants to get you out or whether you’re spoken of more or things like that,” Kohli replied.

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