There is little in life as seductive as potential. The promise of what is to come. This is especially true in sport. If you had a penny for every prodigy who was expected to be the next Sachin Tendulkar or Kapil Dev, you’d be richer than Warren Buffett. Often, these young hopefuls do make it to the big time. They then dazzle us for a while before fading away. As the years pass, the narrative shifts from ‘what lies ahead’ to ‘what might have been’. Cricket history is littered with such broken or thwarted dreams.
When Mumbai Indians shelled out eight crores for Jofra Archer at the 2022 Indian Premier League auction, they knew that he was unlikely to play any part in the season that was to follow. He hadn’t played for Rajasthan Royals in 2021 either, and a setback after elbow surgery in May that year meant that the timeline for a possible return was hazy.
But Mumbai believed he was worth the punt. After all, he had repaid Rajasthan’s 7.2-crore investment with 46 wickets between 2018 and 2020. In 2020, when he was named the league’s Most Valuable Player, he took 20 wickets from 14 matches, at an unimaginable economy rate of 6.55. He was, as they say in parts of the United Kingdom, different gravy.
That was the Archer that Mumbai paid all that money for. Now, with the news that he is returning home to focus on rehabilitation from an injury that has bothered him for more than two years, they are left to count the cost. Two seasons, five matches, and two wickets, at an economy rate (9.50) worse than the much-maligned Arjun Tendulkar.
In the last two years, Archer has played four ODIs and three T20Is for England. Ben Stokes and his team start their attempt to regain the Ashes from Australia in June, but they long ago accepted that Archer, whose 22 wickets and tussles with Steven Smith were such a thrilling sub-plot in the 2-2 draw in 2019, would have no part to play in the campaign.
Archer turned 28 in April, and the likelihood of him becoming the all-format star he promised to be when he burst on to the scene with Sussex in 2016 is increasingly slim. Once he recovers, it could well be that he prioritises the shortest format and franchise contracts in a bid to prolong his career.
Questions should rightly be asked of the manner in which England bowled him into the ground in that Ashes series in Jimmy Anderson’s absence. Anderson will play his tenth Ashes series this summer at the sprightly young age of 40. Archer may never play a Test again.
Mumbai’s predicament will remind European-football watchers of what happened to Real Madrid a few seasons ago. In the summer of 2019, they bought Eden Hazard from Chelsea for €100 million, plus various appearance-based add-ons. In his seven seasons in England, Hazard had been one of the Premier League’s standout players, scoring an astonishing 110 goals in 352 games for Chelsea, despite not being a centre-forward.
Real thought they were getting one of world football’s elite performers. Four years on, Hazard has made just 75 appearance for the world’s most famous football club, scoring a paltry seven goals. He last scored a league goal in 2020-21. Instead of lighting up La Liga and the Champions League, and becoming Cristiano Ronaldo’s successor, Hazard has become a £400,000-per-week player whom Real cannot wait to get off their wage bill.
What Archer is going through is most unfortunate, and he is a young man who deserves every bit of our empathy. But Mumbai Indians fans will doubtless question the wisdom of building a strategy around someone under such a big fitness cloud. Even in 2022, with a clearly overworked Jasprit Bumrah some way off his best, Mumbai has a shocking season, finishing last.
This year, with a serious back injury ruling Bumrah out, the expectation was that Archer would reprise his Rajasthan form, and lift them up the table. The Australian duo of Jason Behrendorff and Riley Meredith has struggled on Indian pitches, and the team’s bowling as a whole has lacked teeth. But for Piyush Chawla rolling back the years with some fabulous spells, they would probably be rock bottom.
There is no guarantee either that Bumrah or Archer will turn out in Mumbai blue in 2024, such is the nature of many fast-bowling injuries. For now, Mumbai fans, who were used to a rich diet of success between 2013 and 2020, must recalibrate their expectations. What is on the table is a meagre spread, and it’s hard to see a team with such powder-puff bowling making a deep play-off run.
As for Archer, he and his many well-wishers can only hope and pray that he recovers fully. “In terms of modern guys, when I talk about bowling techniques, Jofra Archer’s easiness reminds me Michael Holding,” said Ian Bishop on the ICC’s Cricket Inside Out podcast a few years ago. “Holding and Archer’s bowling actions are two of the easiest, orthodox actions I have ever seen. I rate Archer’s potential very highly.”
Hopefully, that fluid action will be glimpsed again soon, and we won’t be left to lament another tale of thwarted promise.