LON­DON, Eng­land – A thumb in­jury has ruled Bar­ba­di­an-born Eng­land fast bowler Jofra Archer out of the up­com­ing three-match One Day In­ter­na­tion­al se­ries against West In­dies.

Archer was ex­pect­ed to take part in the se­ries be­gin­ning next week, but an in­jury to his thumb has led to him be­ing re­placed in the squad by fel­low pac­er Luke Wood.

He first sus­tained the in­jury while field­ing dur­ing Ra­jasthan Roy­als’ one-run de­feat against Kolkata Knight Rid­ers in the In­di­an Pre­mier League on May 4.

Al­though it ini­tial­ly ap­peared to be a mi­nor is­sue, fur­ther as­sess­ments re­vealed lig­a­ment dam­age, and fol­low­ing the sus­pen­sion of the tour­na­ment ear­li­er this month, Archer did not re­turn to In­dia for this week’s re­sump­tion.

The in­jury has al­so cast doubt over Archer’s pos­si­ble in­clu­sion in Eng­land’s Test squad for next month’s five-match se­ries against In­dia.

It is just the lat­est set­back for the 30-year-old Archer, has been bat­tling with a se­ries of long-term in­juries since 2021, in­clud­ing an el­bow prob­lem that re­quired mul­ti­ple op­er­a­tions, and a stress frac­ture of the back.

CMC