Our loss…Archer’s bright future

A LEISURELY and very smooth run-up to the bowling crease is deceptive for the dangerous deliveries that he’s about to unleash on the non-suspecting batsman, fooled by the gentle approach of this 6’ 2” fast bowling dynamo! He floored one of the top three batsmen in the world with a vicious bouncer that leapt at the throat from a discomfiting length!

Steve Smith was on 80, set and confident! Batsmen at that score, seeing the ball, as they say in the rank and file, “big as a breadfruit”, would normally find little difficulty in avoiding any fast bowler’s bouncers and especially Smith, who scored centuries in either innings in the first Test match of this “Ashes” series against England, hence, a man in form. Generally speaking, a batsman would be more vulnerable early in his innings, nevertheless, the former Australian skipper was batting beautifully and heading for his third hundred in this first innings of the second Test at Lord’s cricket ground, traditionally accepted world-wide as the headquarters of cricket, when disaster struck!

The ball reared to his head and in trying to evade this missile heading for his face at 94 mph, he turned away and was hit in the neck below the helmet! A sickening blow! Smith collapsed and lay motionless on the pitch.

That ball was delivered by Jofra Archer on his Test cricket debut for England. Archer was born in Barbados on April 1, 1995. At 24, he’s already labelled a sensation and is certainly living up to his billing. His father is of British nationality and Archer has dual citizenship. He lived in Barbados until he moved to England when he was 18.

As a young man he was selected and represented the West Indies under-19 team in 2014. Subsequently however, he was not chosen for the West Indies under-19 World Cup team. That year the competition was in Sharjah and I recall TT’s Nicholas Pooran being a member of the side.

Chris Jordan, who is a member of the Sussex County Cricket Club and also of Barbadian heritage, was in a net session in Barbados whereupon he recognised the raw talent of Archer and encouraged him to join Sussex thereby expanding his options of moving up the ladder to international cricket.

Jordan would be remembered as being a member of the England T20 team that went under to West Indies (WI) in the Champions final, in Calcutta, in 2016; the game that Carlos Brathwaite struck four sixes in the final over off the first four deliveries from pacer Ben Stokes, to achieve the 21 runs for victory.

There was turmoil developing in WI cricket at this time with a new president Whycliffe ‘Dave’ Cameron, influenced by Richard Pybus, an Englishman who was laying down autocratic rules for qualification to play for the WI. This was the time when Cameron arbitrarily cut the fees of the WI team by almost half, triggering the walk-out of the West Indies team, under Dwayne Bravo, on the tour of India in October 2014.

Archer, no doubt, might have been influenced by his father to migrate to England. Whatever, in 2016, he found himself participating for Sussex. Every English cricketer that saw him, like Andrew Flintoff, Sir Ian Botham and Kevin Petersen, for example, thought he would be a “shoo-in” on an England team. It helped that in 2018 residency status was reduced from seven years to three so Archer could represent Englandt. In 2018,

Rajasthan Royals of the Indian Premier League, bid 800,000 pound-sterling for the relatively unknown non-international.

What makes Archer so special? He’s athletic, extremely coordinated, with tremendous skill. Any coach would use him as an example to young cricketers as to bowling action, from approach to the bowling crease, how to get close to the stumps. The non-bowling arm in the delivery kept very high, leading the body, with the bowling arm following, carrying its way to its full height, then and only then, releasing the ball.

The physical attributes are there. His passion for the game had to be present and he obviously had good coaching from his early boyhood days in Barbados, for his action and point of delivery could only be learnt from those who know the reasons why. The man, Jofra Archer, also had to have the ambition and the right attitude to take on the game head-on and be successful!

He’s no slouch with the bat either, plus a brilliant fieldsman!

Our loss… Archer’s bright future!