England's tearaway pacer Jofra Archer has been added back to the IPL 2025 mega auction shortlist after being excluded earlier from the 574-player-long pool. Archer, who made an injury-free comeback to international cricket before the T20 World Cup and has sustained a few white-ball series since, is on England's radar to make a Test comeback in the next home summer. Hence, the ECB will be closely following the proceedings at the auction and then the IPL if Archer does get picked.
Archer last played in the IPL in 2023 and was pulled back by the ECB earlier this year after being released by the Mumbai Indians. However, with the IPL coming up with stringent rules, especially with regards to overseas players, Archer missing out on putting his name for the mega auction might have ruled him out of two IPL seasons straight. Now, if Archer does get picked up, all eyes will be on his workload management with a five-match Test series against India to follow in June-July.
Archer played just five matches for Mumbai Indians in the 2023 edition after being picked up by the five-time champions in the 2022 mega auction as a long-term investment. However, his persistent injury concerns forced the Mumbai Indians to pull the plug on him before 2024.
However, it was not just Archer, who made a late entry to the shortlist. As per ESPNCricinfo, the USA pacer and T20 World Cup's breakout star Saurabh Netravalkar and Mumbai wicketkeeper-batter Hardik Tamore too were added to the original list, which has now extended to 577 players.
Archer is part of the sixth set of fast bowlers, which means he will come into the auction on the first day itself.
Shreyas Iyer, Arshdeep Singh, Jos Buttler, Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul, Mohammed Siraj and Liam Livingstone are among the 12 players in the two marquee sets, all of them with a base price of INR 2 crore.
