On Friday, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) confirmed that the fiery Rajasthan Royals (RR) fast bowler, Jofra Archer will be missing the entire season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021. Earlier this month, Archer underwent surgery on his middle finger and started his training as well.

In a statement regarding the same, RCB wrote: “The ECB and Sussex medical teams will continue to monitor his progress. Archer will now step up his training regime starting next week and will be in full training with Sussex. It is expected that he will return to cricket in the next fortnight if he can continue to bowl and prepare pain-free.”

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It will come as a huge blow for RR, as Jofra Archer has been playing a crucial role for the franchise in the last couple of seasons. Despite the team finishing at the bottom of the table, Archer finished as the MVP in 2020 as he had managed to scalp 20 wickets in 14 games, with an economy of 6.55 and having had scored 113 runs.

An update on @Jofraarcher's fitness 👇

— England Cricket (@englandcricket) April 23, 2021

If Archer was to come to the IPL 2021, he would’ve had to undergo a mandatory isolation period of 7 days and that would interrupt his preparation and bowling build-up, not ideal in his return to competition. Both the Royals and Archer came to the decision mutually. The ECB will confirm Archer’s return to competitive cricket in the upcoming days. Fans will be expecting home to play mid-May for Sussex in the Championship.

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On Thursday, RCB managed to stretch their unbeaten streak to 4 matches in a row in the ongoing season of the IPL 2021. They comfortably chased down a tricky target of 178 runs with 10 wickets in hand and more than 3 overs to spare against RR as Virat Kohli and Devdutt Padikkal came down all guns blazing. RCB has once again reached the top of the IPL 2021 points table.