The dream of seeing Jofra Archer play for England at the World Cup moved a step closer to reality on Tuesday as the 28-year-old bowled off a full run‑up in the Oval nets during the team’s preparations for the third one-day international against New Zealand.
Despite the fact that Archer has not played a competitive game since 6 May, and last took a wicket in April, England continue to hope he will be able to travel to India at the end of the month as one of three reserve players, and potentially play at some point in the tournament. He is not in the squad for the New Zealand series, nor for the three games against Ireland that follow it, but is edging closer to fitness after being ruled out of the English summer by the recurrence of a stress fracture to his right elbow.
“He looks in a good place,” David Willey said. “I don’t know where he’s at fitness-wise but he was bowling good wheels out there. Everyone knows how good he is, what he’s capable of and how he can impact games, so to have him close or not far away from being fit is fantastic news.”
Both Adil Rashid, who missed the second game on Sunday with a calf issue, and Dawid Malan, whose son Dawid was born on Saturday, also trained on Tuesday. Meanwhile Archer worked with Andrew Flintoff, whose own recovery from injury – in his case, a near-fatal car crash while filming for the BBC’s Top Gear last December – has allowed him to take part in several training sessions with England over the last week.
“He’s a legend of the game, I grew up watching him play and just to have him here with us is fantastic,” said Willey.“It’s quite surreal receiving compliments from Freddy, and just to be able to pick his brain and talk to him about the game is fantastic.”
Willey has taken four wickets in the first two games of the series, and scored 28 runs off 13 balls across two unbeaten innings, to emphasise his value. He is likely to be rested for at least one of the remaining fixtures, at the Oval on Wednesday and at Lord’s on Friday. However, the 33-year-old hopes his all‑round credentials and his fitness record – he has bowled 507 deliveries across 25 games since Archer last flexed an arm in anger – will stand him in good stead when a final 15-man World Cup squad is named on 28 September.
“Me staying fit, touch wood, is probably an asset to the group with guys who sometimes struggle with niggles and things,” he said.
“Call me a donkey if you want but to take a donkey out to what could be a tough trip, you might just need a donkey. They keep going, donkeys, don’t they?”
When Willey fielded a call last month from Matthew Mott, England’s white-ball coach, informing him that he would take part in this series, he was also told he would be going to the World Cup. Mott has since said the squad is merely “provisional”.
Willey said: “The phone call I received was that I’m in the squad for the World Cup, but it’s professional sport and things do change.”
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Mott is considering tweaking the squad to find a place for Harry Brook. Willey was dropped from the squad that won the World Cup in 2019 to make way for Archer and subsequently “fell out of love with the game for a period of time”, and though several specialist batters may consider their places at risk he could yet be forced to repeat the experience.
“Goodness me, that would be a tough one to take,” he said. “I think the important thing, whoever does miss out, is the quality of the communication around that. I don’t think that the communication I got was particularly good.
“I don’t need to go into it too much but, you know, it would probably have been nice to receive a phone call from a couple of guys who were involved with the decision-making. But it’s never going to be easy. Somebody is going to miss out. It is professional sport and that’s the nature of it. It doesn’t make it any easier, but it’s part and parcel of the game and hopefully the communication with whoever it is will be good.”