Rob Key: Archer’s IPL stint will put him ‘behind schedule’ for Test return

Rob Key has conceded that Jofra Archer‘s decision to play in the IPL next year will put him “a couple of months behind” schedule in his attempted Test comeback. However, the league’s new rules left the ECB’s management feeling unable to deny him the opportunity to earn two seasons’ wages.

Archer has not played a Test since February 2021 due to back and elbow issues, but has been injury-free in 2024. His chances of a comeback increased this week when he signed an extension to his central contract, which now runs beyond the 2025-26 Ashes, while Ben Stokes said that Archer remains “very interested” in returning to Test cricket.

Key, England’s managing director, had initially planned for him to play for Sussex in the County Championship in April and May to build up his workload ahead of England’s Test series against India in June and July. But under new regulations, missing the IPL’s mega-auction would have rendered Archer ineligible for the subsequent mini-auction as well, at significant financial cost.

Archer’s name was on the initial longlist of names circulated to IPL franchises before the auction but he did not feature on the shortlist, with the ECB making the case that they were still managing his injuries. But after clarification from the BCCI, he was added back to the shortlist and was bought for INR 12.5 crore (£1.18m) by Rajasthan Royals, following a bidding war with Mumbai Indians.

“Jofra is always brilliant to deal with,” Key said, in an interview on Wisden Cricket Weekly’s Patreon channel. “We were like, ‘The best thing might be to miss the IPL this year and get yourself ready, and we’ll start building your loads up… if you can get through a bit of Championship cricket, and then you can start the Test summer. He was happy with that.

“But we had to look and see what India were going to do with [the IPL’s rules]. We thought that we could make the case that he’s still in part of a managed workload period. The problem with that was he was then bowling with two slips and a gully and bowling 90mph in the T20s in the West Indies, so it’s hard to make the case that he’s injured when he’s bowling like that.

“They [the BCCI] came back after a bit of back-and-forth and said, ‘Well no, he won’t be allowed to go into this year, next year from then on. So then you start thinking that could be about $4 million that he loses out on there, and I don’t then feel… then it’s on him, really. You say, ‘Jof, what do you want to do? This is your career, your life. You’ll still be able to play Test cricket.’

“We believe there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge for that, but we still think he’ll be alright. We’ll just be a couple of months behind… So then Jofra decided that he felt the best thing for him was to go into the IPL [auction], which we had no issue with, and then do that loading throughout the IPL and get himself ready for the Test series that way.”

Key still believes Archer could be “one of the best bowlers” England have ever had and that he could play a role against India – though cautioned that he will not be an automatic selection. “The plan is that he’ll be ready to play,” he said. “He was only ever going to play one or two Tests this summer, probably – at a push, three.

“He’s also got to get in the team now. I think he could be one of the best bowlers we’ve had, but he’s got to find form. He’s got to be able to show that he can sustain it through a whole four-day game. It’s not a case that he’s fit, so he just comes into play. We’ve got some very good bowlers around now… I don’t see any reason why he can’t [return to Tests].”

Key admitted that his decision-making as managing director has been informed in part by his concern that franchises will offer England players year-round deals which are so lucrative that they opt out of their central contracts. “You don’t know what other governing bodies are going to do,” he said. “We’re very much in a new world.

“I don’t think we want to be in a place where centrally-contracted England players walk away from English cricket… Let’s say a franchise signs someone for $2 million to play all year round: we won’t see them for England. These franchise owners, they won’t say, ‘Oh, that’s fine, we’ll pay them $2 million and you go and bowl them 20 overs a day in a Test match.'”