England fast bowler Jofra Archer has been added back to the final auction list days after his name did not feature in the shortlist sent by the IPL recently to franchises last weekend.
ESPNcricinfo has learned that Archer's addition was informally confirmed to franchises on Thursday, three days before the two-day mega auction will start on November 24 in the in Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah.
While the IPL is yet to make the news public, the franchises will be interested to see the set which features Archer. Along with his England team-mate Mark Wood, Archer was among the notable absentees in the 574-player shortlist the IPL had sent to franchises.
Their absence raised eyebrows considering both England quicks were part of the original longlist sent by IPL. Archer had set the maximum base price of INR 2 crore.
He will now feature on the first batch of fast bowlers (Set 6) that presently has seven quicks and would come up for bids on the first day.
ESPN understands that Archer and his representatives have been discussing matters with the ECB and the BCCI this week to clarify what the implications might have been had he not been included on the list. Archie holds a central contract with ECB, which goes until the last week of September, so ECB would have certain control over his workload.
Archer has not played Test cricket since early 2021 but England remain hopeful that he will return to the format next year, when they face India at home and Australia away. "Everything is going exactly to plan for Jofra," managing director Rob Key told the Sunday Times last week. "Can he play Tests next summer? With all my fingers crossed, yes."
It would make it substantially tougher for Archer to spend April and May at the IPL, and him, thus, rule out playing for Sussex in the early stages of the County Championship season. Last year, the ECB blocked Archer from entering the auction to ensure that he did not rush back from an injury, but doing so this year would have left him out of cricket until 2027 at the earliest.
This season, for this auction cycle, the IPL has brought about a few new rules. The first one states that players who have played within the league already and failed to register for the mega-auction would not be eligible to enroll in the next mini-auction. Another states that a player signed in an auction who then backs out without a valid reason attracts a two-year ban.
Archer, 29, returned to the field this summer after a long injury lay-off, playing for England in the white-ball series against Pakistan, Australia and West Indies as well as the T20 World Cup. His workload was closely managed by medical staff throughout, but was able to play all three ODIs in the Caribbean earlier this month.
At the 2022 mega-auction, Mumbai Indians spent INR 8 crore (then USD 1.06m approx.) on Archer even though he had just undergone elbow surgery and was not fit to play that season. He played five games for MI in 2023, taking two wickets, before his season was ended prematurely by another elbow issue.
Archer was the MVP of his last full IPL season where he took 20 wickets for Rajasthan Royals in the 2020 edition, which is held in the UAE. So far, he has taken 48 wickets in 40 appearances in his career in IPL.
ESPNcricinfo has discovered two more names that are included in the auction shortlist: USA fast bowler Saurabh Netravalkar will be player No. 575 and Hardik Tamore, the Mumbai wicketkeeper-batter, will be player 576.
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