England’s Jofra Archer angry after reports emerge of elbow operation

Jofra Archer has reacted angrily to further speculation over his fitness after it emerged that he had undergone a minor elbow operation during his recent absence from the Indian Premier League’s Mumbai Indians.

The England seamer was absent for three weeks, missing four IPL matches with what his coach, Mark Boucher, described as “a little niggle”, before returning for Saturday’s defeat to Punjab Kings when he bowled his full allocation of four overs and showed no obvious signs of discomfort.

Archer was again absent for Tuesday’s defeat against Gujarat Titans and later the Telegraph reported that during his time out of the side he had travelled to Belgium for an operation, the fifth on his right elbow inside the past two years.

“Putting out an article without knowing the facts and without my consent is crazy,” Archer wrote on Twitter. “Whoever the reporter is shame on you. An already worrying and troubling time for a player and you exploit it for your personal gain, it’s people like you that are the problem.”

The report has increased concerns about the 28-year-old’s participation in this summer’s Ashes. Archer has not played a first-class game since May 2021, when he bowled 18 overs in a draw between Sussex and Kent in the County Championship.

In 23 months since then he has bowled only 98 overs in competitive cricket – in the same time Jimmy Anderson has bowled 934.1 – with none at all between July 2021 and November 2022 as he battled through a succession of elbow problems, a stress fracture of his spine, and surgery to remove from his finger a shard of glass that became embedded when he smashed a fish tank while trying to clean it in a bathtub.

The latest operation was conducted by Roger van Riet, the Belgian specialist