“I never thought about not coming back,” Jofra Archer told BBC Test Match Special commentator and former England player Jonathan Agnew. “That was just you.”
Sport is about moments. For all the talk of not getting too high or too low, there are also instances where you should allow yourself to be whisked away in the ecstasy of a situation. And this week at Lord's was one of them.
Archer will not play 100 Tests. His body won’t allow it and we know this. As such, for the rare times where it comes together, when he is able to be on the pitch and spearhead England to one of their most famous Test victories in recent years, a 22-run win over India to seize a 2-1 lead in this captivating five-match series, it is important to enjoy it.
Monday is the sixth anniversary of England’s 2019 World Cup win. A day that enshrined both Archer and his captain Ben Stokes into English cricketing folklore. Stokes dragged England to the Super Over; before Archer dragged them to the trophy.
For many, the anniversary would be a coincidence and nothing more. For Stokes, however, it was a sign.
“That was genuinely the reason we went with me and Jof,” Stokes said of why England opened the bowling with the two of them on day five. “It felt right that Jof was gonna do something this morning to break the game open.”
And he did.
First, dismissing Rishabh Pant with a stunning delivery that seamed away from the left-hander at pace and dismantled the stumps. Before then producing a superb caught-and-bowled to remove Washington Sundar.
Stokes summarised it best: “He’s an absolute beauty that boy.”
Two balls before the wicket of Pant, the wicketkeeper had charged down the wicket and hit Archer for four; last night, Sundar had said in multiple press interviews that India would “definitely” win. At the fall of each wicket, Archer had some choice words for them both.
“It wasn’t a proud moment,” Archer replied sheepishly when asked about his sendoff to Pant. A position that former England bowler Stuart Broad disagreed with.
“Worth 15 percent,” Broad, now working for Sky Sports, quipped on X. Referring to the likely fine coming Archer’s way from the ICC for unsportsmanlike conduct.
There was a previous era where Archer’s commitment to England – and namely, Test cricket – was questioned. That he was in it for the money and not the badge. But the easy thing for Archer to do would have been to take the white-ball franchise pay packet and be done with it. But that doesn’t reflect the personality of a player who has been infatuated with cricket since he was a child.
As a teenager, he would tweet relentlessly about the sport, watching any match that was on TV from around the world. Less than two years ago, when at home in Barbados, he played club cricket for his old school team when they were threatened with relegation and in need of a hand. Training with England in 2019, he would run through his impersonations of different batters from around the world. His Steve Smith impersonation, in particular, was uncanny. This is a man who values the cultural currency of the sport as much as the financial one. A new-age cricketer with an old-school heart. Yes, millions are to be made at the IPL, but that isn’t Test cricket. And this. This week. That’s the peak.
“This, definitely, has been worth all the waiting,” Archer said in the moments after the final wicket had fallen. “I feel a bit speechless, seeing it all come together."
Archer played just one first-class match before his return to the England Test set-up. But ask the England backroom staff whether they feel Archer has been rushed back and they will laugh. His return to this stage has been micro-managed to the nth degree. In the past year he has played almost 30 matches for England, just all with the white-ball rather than the red. There were some reports he could have played in the Pakistan Tests over the winter and he even asked Stokes himself if he could play against Zimbabwe in May, but the decision was made to be uber cautious. India, then Australia, was the play.
Archer often cites the online warriors who have plagued him over the years that he has spent injured. He mentions it in passing, in a way that’s designed to brush it off as nothing major, but reflects the truth that they have at times got under his skin.
But if ever the world needed more evidence that the internet is not reality, it is the reception that Archer has received over the past two weeks. As twelfth man at Edgbaston, he was serenaded to the point of his own bemusement. Before at Lord’s, his entrance to the bowling attack was greeted with a cheer, his second delivery that beat the bat of Yashasvi Jaiswal then greeted with a roar, and the wicket off his third ball a coronation. This was what everyone had been missing. The Jofra of old, in front of our eyes now.
“The first celebration was a bit emotional,” Archer conceded after he had sprinted off in jubilation and was only halted when he effectively ran over Shoaib Bashir.
“I was going to try and not be too excited but as soon as the catch was taken, that just went out of the window. The joy, and the crowd, gave me a huge lift. It’s made all the hard work and rehab worth it.
“I'm not totally out of the woods yet, but it's a good start.”
In all, the reason not to get carried away is exactly the reason you should. Because while on the one hand it is just the beginning, we could also be closer to the end than we’d ever wish to admit. So enjoy Jofra now, because you never know when it might end.
