What's the latest on the England paceman's unavailability for the first Test at Lord's against New Zealand
Suspense Crime, Digital Desk : England have had to rest premier paceman Jofra Archer for the first Test against New Zealand at Lord's due to workload management. The pace spearhead participated in as many as 16 games for Rajasthan Royals in IPL and picked 25 wickets, third best in the tournament. It was a tight turnaround for the 31-year-old, and thus the English team management have had to pull him from the NZ Test.
It has created a massive controversy within the English cricket circuit and numerous former players have bashed the IPL and believes that international cricket should always have the priority and the ECB could have recalled Archer prior to the fixture and manage his workload.
But Ben Stokes has justified his team's decision and stressed that If they stop Archer from playing franchise cricket, the superstar pacer might not play for England in the first place. Stokes also stressed it is a one off and Archer is always keen to play for England in the coming times.
"I completely understand peoples' frustrations, but there's another side of it and a lot of it's due to the current state of the game of cricket," Stokes said.
"There is a chance of things getting nasty and a player like Jofra might not play for England ever again if you tackle the problem differently and this cannot benefit anyone. Archer has proved his commitment and love to play for England; his inability to play this Test match doesn't change that," he added.
New Zealand elect to bowl first at Lord's
New Zealand have won the toss and have elected to bowl first at Lord's. Stokes added that he would have done the same too and informed that Emilio Gay is all set for his Test debut while Sonny Baker have to wait for his chance.
New Zealand (Playing XI): Tom Latham (c), Devon Conway, Kane Williamson, Rachin Ravindra, Daryl Mitchell, Tom Blundell (wk), Glenn Phillips, Nathan Smith, Kyle Jamieson, Matt Henry, William O'Rourke
England (Playing XI): Emilio Gay, Ben Duckett, Jacob Bethell, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Jamie Smith (wk), Ben Stokes (c), Gus Atkinson, Ollie Robinson, Josh Tongue, Shoaib Bashir
