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<\/p>\n
But they will be without pace spearhead Archer, a member of the Rajasthan Royals team beaten by Gujarat Titans in the IPL last Friday.<\/p>\n
The 31-year-old is now in Barbados, the country of his birth, and his availability even for the second Test at the Oval remains uncertain.<\/p>\n
Archer has a lucrative England central contract and has been supported by the England and Wales Cricket Board through five years of injury trouble.<\/p>\n
Former New Zealand paceman Simon Doull said it was \u201cabsolutely ludicrous\u201d that Archer would be absent from the series opener.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s ludicrous. Absolutely ludicrous,\u201d he told Sky Sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow are you paying this guy up to a \u00a31m per year and he\u2019s not available for your first Test match? It is absolutely ludicrous.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last time that New Zealand came here… Tim Southee, Trent Boult and Matt Henry were all practising in between games in the IPL with a red ball and getting through overs and overs and overs so that they were ready to go when they arrived.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they arrived five days before the first Test after the IPL and that previous tour. OK, it didn\u2019t work out. New Zealand lost the series 3-0. But there is no reason that Archer couldn\u2019t have been bowling six, seven overs each in between days.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that he\u2019s not doing that tells me he has no interest in playing Test cricket.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn between days, he needs to be bowling five overs, six overs, seven overs with the red ball so that he\u2019s ready to go.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd there\u2019s enough time. If you\u2019re doing that in between games, there\u2019s enough time to come back here for a week and get ready for a Test match. There\u2019s no issue with that.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I think it\u2019s completely wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rajasthan Royals’ Jofra Archer celebrates the wicket of Sunrisers Hyderabad’s Travis Head during the Indian Premier League.Source: AP<\/p>\n
But Stokes told reporters at Lord\u2019s on Wednesday that top white-ball players could be lost to Test cricket if they had to make themselves available for every match.<\/p>\n
\u201cI totally understand people\u2019s frustrations around it, but there is another side to it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of it has to do with the landscape of cricket and where it is at the moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of points people are making around Jof and that situation are to do with the landscape when they were playing.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s completely different now. There are opportunities for cricketers now that there were not 10, 15, 20 years ago.\u201d <\/p>\n
England captain Ben Stokes speaks to the media during a press conference at Lord’s Cricket Ground.Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
Stokes said Archer\u2019s desire to play for his country was unquestionable, warning against a hard line approach.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a situation where it could get messy and players like Jofra might not play for England again if you handle it in a different way, and that is not good for there anyone,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cJofra has shown that he\u2019s committed and loves playing for England. Just because he\u2019s not available for this first Test match does not change that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jacob Bethell represented Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the 20-over IPL but is in the England team at Lord\u2019s, the first of a three-Test series.<\/p>\n
The batter has played no meaningful red-ball cricket since his stunning Ashes century in Sydney in January.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just one of those things. You have your number three (Bethell), he has a great couple of games out in Australia, then he spends nine or 10 weeks out in India and you are seeing him two days before a Test match,\u201d said Stokes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is almost becoming the norm. The game is changing all the time. There are some things you have to roll with and accept, it is what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England captain Ben Stokes has warned leading players such as Jofra Archer could be driven away from international…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":713825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[2095,11638,1724,64,63,689,17879,651,30195,10404,740,1208,33511,143709,24160,2057,2105,1209,13849,22255,38709,302806,346708,673,1736,2041,3583,677,346709,1948,668,701,44087,47911,38710,286422,12540,85,91929,670,5338,44867],"class_list":["post-713824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-america","tag-ashes-series","tag-asia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-barbados","tag-brisbane","tag-cameron-spencer","tag-caribbean","tag-cricket","tag-england","tag-england-and-wales-cricket-board","tag-england-captain","tag-england-v","tag-europe","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-india","tag-indian-premier-league","tag-international-cricket","tag-jacob-bethell","tag-leading-players","tag-meaningful-red-ball-cricket","tag-new-south-wales","tag-new-zealand","tag-north-america","tag-northern-europe","tag-oceania","tag-pace-attackcricket","tag-pat-cummins","tag-press-conference","tag-queensland","tag-rajasthan-royals","tag-series-loss","tag-series-opener","tag-simon-doull","tag-southern-asia","tag-sports","tag-sunrisers-hyderabad","tag-sydney","tag-the-gabba","tag-travis-head"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=713824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/713825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}