Jofra Archer to miss entire 2022 English summer

Jofra Archer has been ruled out of the 2022 English summer with a stress fracture of the lower back. Archer, England's World Cup-winning pacer, has spent months battling back from a double dose of elbow surgery, only for his body to let him down again.

Archer last played for England in March 2021. He had hoped to make his comeback from a long-term elbow injury for Sussex in the T20 Blast next week. He had also planned to play some second-team warm-up games before their opening fixture against Glamorgan coming Thursday. Now, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has confirmed that he had been ruled out for the rest of the season after being diagnosed with a back problem.

"We're all with you and we're all gutted for you, @JofraArcher 😔" the ECB captioned while announcing the sad news.

Archer, 27, has undergone three bouts of surgery in the last 14 months. Of which, one on his hand to remove a shard of glass, and the other two on his elbow.

"It's definitely a concern and trying to find out why this is happening is something that we need to look into," Rob Key, England's managing director of men's cricket, was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo.

"We need to make sure that hopefully, it never happens again. But as you know with all fast bowlers, these unfortunately are the things that do happen - stress fractures in particular."