Jofra Archer: I felt like a burden on English cricket

Sitting under the metal roof of Windward Cricket Club just a short stroll from his house on the eastern side of Barbados, Jofra Archer revealed how he worried he had become a “burden” to English cricket during his two-year injury nightmare.

Archer, smiling and chatty as he waited to train with his team-mates in preparation for Saturday’s Group B game against Australia, said he had a tear in his eye as he ran into bowl against Scotland at the Kensington Oval on Tuesday cheered on by family, friends and pupils from his old school.

His carefully plotted return to fitness confines him to white ball cricket this year and Archer himself is not yet daring to dream about playing Tests, although England are gearing everything towards him being fit for the Ashes tour next year.

“Probably the only thing they haven’t planned out is the showers I take,” he said. “I’ve got a PDF file of every single game I’m supposed to play in from now till next summer anyway. It was really planned out and even when I wasn’t playing they made me feel really involved as well. They sent me a thing saying this is what we’re thinking, just specific targets. So even when I wasn’t playing they just gave me targets that I’d keep trying to tick off and it’s really nice that they’re actually falling into place, honestly. “

Archer played five club games in the Barbados league in March and says he felt fully fit from November, but England were not taking chances, holding him back until the series with Pakistan in May because they know he might not have the stomach for another long injury lay-off. “I don’t know how much rehab I have in me,” he said. Understandably he feels he owes England to take his comeback carefully, given the investment they have made which includes multi-year central contract and sending physios and strength and conditioning coaches out to Barbados to work with him when he was not at his county base in Hove.

“I found it a little bit worrying, not really frustrating because I was able to spend most of my rehab here, because I only live 150 metres from this ground right now, and just to get away from the noise back in the UK was really good. I made a joke with Keysy [Rob Key, director of cricket] earlier, because I said I’m really glad I’m back playing because I reckon I would have lost my contract in October. And he laughed and said, ‘no you’re all right’. Sometimes you feel like a burden not playing, and sometimes I’ve seen a few comments as well, people saying ‘he’s on the longest paid holiday I’ve ever seen’. You try to not let it get to you but you can ignore 100 of them but sometimes that 101 is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. I’ve changed a lot of my social media stuff just so you don’t see a lot, but there’s a little that always filters through, but you’ve just got to keep going.”