Archer ruled out for 2 Tests as England look to salvage pride

England bowler Jofra Archer will not play in the remaining two Ashes Tests due to a left side strain, a team official said Wednesday.

The fourth test begins Friday at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and the fifth on Jan. 3 in Sydney. Australia has a winning 3-0 lead in the five-test series and has retained the Ashes.

The 30-year-old Archer spent four years battling a variety of fitness issues, including stress fractures of the back and right elbow, but has been in strong form since making a long-awaited red-ball return against India.

He joined the squad at training on Wednesday at the MCG, but played no part in practice and a spokesperson later confirmed he was out for the remainder of the tour.

He had bowled a total of 80 overs in the games at Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide, taking nine wickets at 27.11 and maintaining the lowest strike-rate among England bowlers.

In the third test at Adelaide, he took five for 53 in the first innings and scored 51 runs.

Meanwhile, an Ashes tour that began with high hopes of taking home the urn has been reduced to a desperate effort to salvage some last vestiges of dignity as England head into one of the great ‍occasions on the ‌sporting calendar, the Boxing Day Test.

The tourists have been savaged since meekly surrendering the ⁠series to a makeshift Australia outfit ‍with a third straight defeat on Sunday in Adelaide, extending their winless streak in Australia to 18 Tests going back to January 2011.

Post-mortems on preparations, squad selection, player behaviour and skill execution will undoubtedly come, but England still ‍have two more dead rubber matches to negotiate before they are allowed to head home.

Team director Rob Key -- whose ‍job, like those of coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes, will be on the line if England succumb to a 5-0 whitewash -- reckons the tourists have been playing at around 20% of their skill level in Australia.

That leaves plenty of room for improvement at the Melbourne Cricket Ground from Friday, when the traditional festive crowd will go a long way to filling the cavernous home of Australian cricket.

Despite his concern at the mental ‌health of his players amid media allegations of some excessive drinking during a break between the ‍second and third tests, Stokes said his goal in Melbourne and Sydney was clear.

“This has not gone anywhere near to plan whatsoever (but) I’m very, very determined to go out and win the remaining two games,” he told reporters ​at the MCG on Wednesday.

“When you know that you can look back on these first three games, and know that you haven’t been able to sustain a quality of cricket for long enough, you are generally going to end up ​on the wrong ‍side of the result.

“(But) I’m very determined to leave Australia with something positive to look back on.”

Australia, ‌meanwhile, have another handful of selection issues to settle with skipper Pat Cummins returning to rehabilitating his back now the series is settled, and spinner Nathan Lyon sidelined for a few months after hamstring surgery.

The home side have been dealing with ​such challenges since ‌the start of the series, however, and will hardly see them as insurmountable given every selection gamble they have taken, or been forced into, has pretty much paid off.

The Australian players have been rejoicing in the triumph of “Ronball” - a jocular tribute to their phlegmatic coach Andrew McDonald and a parody of McCullum’s “Bazball”.

McDonald, in a very ‌relaxed news conference on Tuesday, even briefly offered an opinion on how England had played in the series so far.

“We have been a little bit surprised at times,” he said.

“The way that we had seen them play, to what they’ve delivered at certain times, has surprised us. We can ‍hypothesize around that, but that’s their problem, not ours.”

Off-spinner Nathan Lyon is determined to fight his way back into the Australian team after undergoing surgery for a torn hamstring, coach Andrew McDonald said.

The 38-year-old faces an extended period on the sidelines after damaging his right hamstring saving a boundary on day five of the third Ashes Test in Adelaide.

McDonald said Lyon remained a key part of their plans as reports speculated that his 141-Test career could be over.

It is the second serious injury Lyon has sustained in two years after being ruled out of the previous Ashes series against England with a calf injury picked up at Lord’s in 2023.

He had surgery on Tuesday, but was expected to be with the team during the fourth Ashes Test in Melbourne starting Friday.

“He’s pretty shattered,” McDonald told cricket.com.au late Tuesday. “He’s a huge part of what we do.

“He’s facing a long recovery timeframe. That type of injury, it’s going to be a hard period for him to get back to where he was.

“But he still wants to do it and that’s the main thing.”

After the final two Ashes Tests in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia’s next series is not until the middle of 2026, when they host Bangladesh.

After that is a busy period culminating in a five-Test tour of India from late-January 2027, and then the 150th anniversary Test against England in March.

“India’s on the horizon, he’ll be a key part of that,” McDonald said of Lyon.

“We’ve got New Zealand (and) South Africa before that. So, get through this rehab and then (we’ll) look forward.”

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