Mumbai Indians have inked a deal with England speedster Chris Jordan for the remainder of the cash-rich tournament. Jordan has been roped in as the injury replacement for Jofra Archer in IPL 2023, who “will return home to focus on his rehabilitation” MI said in a statement on Tuesday (May 9).
It has turned out to be a short yet roller-coaster season for Archer who made his return to international cricket earlier this year after a lengthy injury lay-off. He was expected to be available for the entire season, and the 28-year-old did feature in Mumbai’s opening game of the season before being sidelined for the next four games due to a soreness in his elbow. The injury ensured that he kept being in and out of the playing XI and also forced him to fly to Belgium for a minor surgery.
ECB Confirms Jofra Archer’s return to England
Now, Archer will fly back to England where his rehabilitation shall be closely monitored by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB).
Moreover, ECB also released a fresh statement on their behalf, stating that the decision was mutual.
The England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) can confirm that fast bowler Jofra Archer will return from the Indian Premier League with immediate effect. Archer has been recovering from right elbow surgery. However, pushing through the discomfort whilst recently playing, hoping it will settle, has proven challenging. Therefore, it has been agreed for him to return to the UK for a period of rest and rehabilitation to give him the best opportunity for a full recovery,” the ECB said in a statement.
IPL 2023: Mumbai and RCB battle to escape mid-table scrum
With only 17 games left in the league stage, it’s still impossible to separate most of the teams on the IPL points table. Five are locked on 10 points eac, and two on eight each. The overall points distribution makes this one of the closest IPLs ever. The standard deviation, which is a measure of how dispersed or clustered a set of data is around the mean, for the points table this season is 2.366; only once in the previous 15 seasons has it been smaller after 53 games: 1.984 in 2020.
Both Mumbai and RCB currently have ten points from as many games, and with the season approaching its pointy end, they will be desperate to rise above the mid-table jam.
Meanwhile, Jordan, who went unsold at a base price of Rs 2 crore at the December auction, has previously represented ECB, Sunrisers Hyderabad, Punjab Kings, and Chennai Super Kings in the IPL. Jordan, 34, made his IPL debut in 2016 and has 27 wickets to his name in 28 IPL matches. The speedster has played 87 T20Is for England and has taken 96 T20I wickets. Jordan last appeared in the IPL in 2022 for the Super Kings, where he took two wickets in four appearances.
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