Jofra Archer takes the red-ball wicket he's waited 1,501 days for

Times

23-06-2025

Jofra Archer's first wicket in a first-class match for more than four years came at the time England's seam attack were labouring at Headingley against KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant. Bowling from round the wicket, in his second spell of the day, a ball that was full, quick and shaping in struck the left-handed Emilio Gay flush on the shin, pinning the Durham opener leg-before.
Archer celebrated exuberantly, as well he might after such an agonisingly long wait to bowl with a red ball again — 1,501 days in first-class cricket, to be precise — and was mobbed by his Sussex team-mates. It was his only success in 14 overs spread over three spells on a flat pitch at the Riverside in Chester-le-Street, but a timely reminder that his languid pace brings a different dimension to any bowling attack, offering the sort of penetration England have been lacking against India in the first Test.
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There has been enough evidence on his white-ball appearances for England in recent times, along with his short bursts in the Indian Premier League, that Archer is still capable of bowling at 90mph and troubling some of the best batsmen in the game.
But it is a different matter to sustain hostility over three spells in a day, and the second day of his return to the Sussex side was his most arduous work since that previous first-class appearance, way back in May 2021, since when injuries to his elbow, back and, most recently a broken thumb, have kept his first-class career on hold.
'Everything's fine,' he said. 'The pitch didn't do much. Today could have been the longest day I've ever had, not because it's red-ball cricket, but when the ball's moving around, it feels a bit more exciting. When the scoreboard got to 50 overs, I thought, 'Jesus, it's time to come off now'. But it wasn't that bad, doing it session by session.'
Whether his efforts in this County Championship Division One match will be enough to persuade England to play him in the second Test, starting at Edgbaston on July 2, remains to be seen. For the time being, there was relief and pleasure in simply seeing Archer wearing whites once again, taking the next step back towards a longed-for return to Test cricket.
His most recent Test appearance — his 13th, in which time he has taken 42 wickets — came against India in Ahmedabad in February 2021. He was 25 at the time and recently turned 30, a colossal chunk of a career to have been denied.
After making 31 with the bat on the opening day, Archer finished day two with figures of 14-6-28-1, as Durham reached 249 for five in response to Sussex's first innings of 361. He was brought into the attack as first change under morning cloud cover and, when his first ball passed Gay at hip height down the leg side, Archer yelled an optimistic appeal for a catch behind. His script would not be quite so dramatic on this occasion.
On a blustery, hands-in-pocket sort of day, Archer was being watched by Neil Killeen, the ECB's elite bowling coach, who has devised the programme under which he has gradually been building his bowling loads back towards the levels required for Test cricket. With the Kookaburra brand of ball that will be used in the Ashes next winter, his first spell of four overs went for 11 runs and was accurate rather than threatening, with so little pace in the pitch, and Archer could be heard voicing frustrations at the lifeless surface.
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When he came back into the attack after lunch, he looked a more dangerous prospect altogether. To Will Rhodes, another left hander, he bowled short with two men back on the hook, and then hurried him noticeably when he pitched fuller. He had come close to trapping Gay leg-before with a ball that nipped back before success finally came with the second ball of his sixth over of the day from the Finchale End, part of a highly impressive second spell that brought him one for eight from six overs.
His third spell, four overs after tea, was not as menacing, and his lack of match practice in the longer format will have to be weighed alongside the threat he poses when England contemplate recalling him to the Test team. But Archer will be back in the conversation now, at least — a hugely welcome development for such a talented fast bowler.
Jacob Bethell entered Warwickshire's game against Somerset ­needing two runs to complete the first 1,000 of his nascent 24-match career. At the midway point, however, he has in fact found two wickets instead. Hoping to impress the England selectors, he waits to bat on a slow hybrid pitch which brought Somerset 498 and Tom ­Lammonby a career-best 133 (Neville Scott writes).
It was his fellow left-hander's second successive championship hundred, though the innings were 30 days apart with the Blast intervening. The fact that Bethell and another part-time spinner Rob Yates, with three for 44, together claimed the last five Somerset wickets, however, may yet have a bearing on a contest employing the same surface used for a T20 match last Friday.
In Warwickshire's reply, Tom Latham and Alex Davies survived near misses and with both posting fifties by a dozen overs from the close. Their second-wicket stand will resume 125 to the good, with the home side at Edgbaston still 340 runs adrift after two days.
In Blackpool, having given Kent's batsmen first use of the pitch, James Anderson, Lancashire's stand-in captain, and his players had been made to field for more than 120 overs while Ben Compton made a long hundred and their opponents ground their way to 374 at little more than three an over (Paul Edwards writes).
The morning session encouraged Lancashire's bowlers, only to exasperate them. In his first 11 balls of the day, Anderson had both Jack Leaning and Evison caught by Josh Bohannon at short mid-wicket, thus reducing Kent to 219 for five.
Compton, however, responded to these reverses by reaching his fourth century of the season off 201 balls with a back cut off Mitch Stanley and embarking on a 95-run stand with Harry Finch that stretched deep into this languorous Monday afternoon on the Fylde. Both batsmen were eventually caught behind within nine balls of each other, Compton for a gloriously old-school 135 that took him 402 minutes across two days.
Lancashire closed on 120 for one in reply, thanks to century opening stand between Keaton Jennings and Luke Wells.