Jofra Archer will miss the 2022 English summer season after he suffers from a stress fracture of the lower back.

Archer played for England in March last year. He hoped to make a comeback after recovering from an elbow injury for Sussex in the upcoming T20 Blast.

He was not able to step on the pitch and the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) on Thursday confirmed that he will miss the entire summer season after being diagnosed with a back problem.

The 27-year-old has undergone three surgeries in the last 14 months.

After the initial elbow surgery, he made an abortive comeback for Sussex, playing one T20 Blast game and one Royal London Cup warm-up match before being diagnosed with a stress fracture, necessitating the second procedure in December.

He returned to competitive cricket in time for the start of the Blast after training with England in Barbados as part of their rehabilitation during their T20I and Test tours to the Caribbean earlier this year.

He also skipped the ongoing IPL after being signed for INR 8 crore (USD 1.06 million) by Mumbai Indians.

Archer revealed earlier this month that he feared for his career at one point during his layoff, and his new setback will unavoidably raise doubts about his body’s ability to cope with the demands of first-class cricket once more.

The ECB was already concerned about the quantity of injured English fast bowlers, with Sam Curran, Chris Woakes, Ollie Robinson, Mark Wood, Olly Stone, Saqib Mahmood, and Matthew Fisher among those who were not considered for inclusion for the summer’s first Test team.

“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, said on Wednesday.

“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.”

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