Let us tell you about Jofra Archer from England’s World Cup squad

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Jofra Archer (Sky Sports)

Jofra Archer bowls very quickly and at times jarringly and unexpectedly slowly (on purpose). He is controlled and canny. He fields as well as anyone and can apparently bat – although he pretty much never gets to demonstrate that.

In some ways, you can see why the media coverage of Archer leading up to this World Cup gave the impression he was the greatest cricketer in the world. However, we reckon that within the England squad, he probably only ranks fifth or sixth on the Irreplaceability Index that we’ve just made up.

The team did, after all, fare pretty well without him until May of this year, whereas an injury to Jason Roy, Jos Buttler, dear-Lord-no-please-not-Adil-Rashid or one of the other batsmen would really take a very important chunk out of them.

Weird but true and not remotely meant as a slight on Archer, who’s clearly magic.

Let us tell you about the other members of England’s World Cup squad

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Coincidence?

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17 comments

    1. Bags of pace bowlers. Liam Dawson is Rashid’s understudy.

      Also he’s England’s best bowler.

      1. I put him in my BBC Sport all-time England ODI XI so am now feeling somewhat vindicated in the sanctuary of the similar opinions of others.

  1. Rashid’s got to be an automatic pick with the white ball. I think it’s probably been established that he’s too erratic and expensive for longer formats (from which, to be fair to him, he had already retired when England insisted on “pulling him back in”)

    [I would look for the obligatory Pacino clip on youtube… but I can’t remember the html for inserting a hyperlink and can’t be arsed to go and hunt for it..!]

    1. You can just paste the URL in and it’ll work.

      You could go for the ‘Dunkacino’ Dunkin’ Donuts ad for a “pull me back in” variant.

      1. I meant turning a piece of text into a hyperlink for something else. Frequently done on this site (and indeed elsewhere)

  2. Can anyone improve my wine-related cricket XI for upcoming cricket-related wine tasting? Bats deep, needs pace, nobody too obscure please… feels very English, must be missing some better ones around the world… no google…

    1. Syrahlastair Cook
    2. Alex Lees
    3. Joe Rootstock
    4. Faoud Bacchus
    5. Allan Bordeaux (c)
    6. Matt Priorat (w)
    7. Jacob’s Creek Oram
    8. Ryan McLaren Vale
    9. Dominic Cork
    10. Roelof van der Merlot
    11. Grenachley Giles

    12. Will Beer

  3. I must say the thing I’m most looking forward to is Jofra’s fielding – I have a giddy feeling he will lead the all time “caught and bowled” dismissals in an England shirt and will start with a few in the upcoming tournament.
    This could be twaddle but every time I watch this https://tinyurl.com/yy7ayknb and this https://tinyurl.com/yye3s5sq it feels 0.96% more likely.

    1. That second one is extraordinary… the commentators are busily are discussing through the clip which of the batsman is out, but surely the run-out (impressive as it is) is irrelevant? The ball must be dead as soon as the catch is completed..?

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