“He Nearly Took My Head Off”, Glenn Phillips Recalls The Lethal Spell Of Jofra Archer

Glenn Phillips, the top order wicketkeeper batsman who was a part of the New Zealand A side for the warm up game against the visiting England team, says that he has never faced a bowler as quick as Jofra Archer in his life.

Archer, who made his debut in international cricket earlier this year, is turning out to be extremely lethal with his pace in all formats of the game.

What makes Archer so threatening is the bounce that he gets from the back of length area with a speed well in the range of 90 miles per hour.

He has a high arm bowling action and the flick of the wrist at the very last moment while he is delivering the ball allows him to generate steep bounce from a length where the batsman is not expecting it from.

Phillips was at the wrong side of it yesterday while batting against Archer. He faced some absolute snorters from the 24-year old Barbados born speedster.

Phillips did reasonably well in the match and he wasn’t dismissed by Archer in either of the two innings. But, he was hit quite a few times on his body and talking to the reporters, he admitted that the Archer spell was an unbelievable challenge.

“My Goodness. He got me on the forearm, he nearly took my head off a couple of times and then he took me on the chest a couple of times.” Phillips told the reporters.

This is not the first time that Archer has hit a batsman on his body. He did that in the Ashes as well. He did it quite a few times and that too to the world no. 1 batsman Steve Smith who actually had to miss a test match because of the concussion he suffered after being hit off Archer’s bowling.

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