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England white-ball coach Matthew Mott admitted on Wednesday that pacer Jofra Archer is "not firing on all cylinders" as he continues to play after a lengthy injury lay-off, but added that it is important to stay patient to ensure that the "box office" bowler gets back to his best.
Archer's elbow, and back problems had kept him out of international cricket for 22 months, until he made his return against South Africa in January. His first match on return was not memorable, as he gave away 81 runs. But he delivered a fiery spell of 6/40 in the second match. In the recently-concluded ODI series against Bangladesh, Archer picked up five scalps in two matches in three-match series that England won by 2-1. Mott admitted that England erred on side of caution when ruling Archer out of playing twice in the space of three days during the series. Mott said as quoted by Sky Sports: "Not really, no. The medical advice was definitely not back-to-back games." Archer's workload till the start of English summer will be some T20s, a three-match series against Bangladesh away from home and a stint with Mumbai Indians (MI) in the Indian Premier League (IPL). Mott is confident that the 27-year-old pacer will be back to his best, peaking in time for the Ashes this summer and the defence of their 50-over World Cup title in Indian conditions during October-November. "He is a box office player. He has fitted back into the group beautifully and it is an incredible effort for a fast bowler to be out for that long and come back and play as he has done." "He would admit that he is not fully firing on all cylinders. You can just see he is ticking all the boxes to get back to his best." "He just seems to be really slowly, strategically just making sure he is doing it right and ticking over and come the Ashes, come the World Cup, I am sure you will see him back to his best," concluded the coach. The first T20I of the three-match series against Bangladesh will be played on Thursday. (ANI)
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