Jofra Archer will begin bowling in a fortnight after successful surgery to remove glass from hand

Jofra Archer will return to bowling in a fortnight in a bid to prove his fitness for the Indian Premier League.

Archer, 25, remains hopeful that he will be able to play a proportion of the IPL season with Rajasthan Royals and will test out his ongoing elbow problem once he has been given the all-clear in a follow-up appointment for Monday’s hand surgery.

The operation to remove a piece of glass embedded in his right middle finger coincided with a rest period designed to let his elbow injury settle following a second cortisone injection of the year last week, and is unlikely to delay his schedule.

Jofra Archer is set to begin bowling in a fortnight following successful hand surgery

Archer has surgery to remove glass from his fingers after smashing a fish tank at home

As Sportsmail reported earlier this month, although Archer, the IPL’s reigning MVP with a £800,000 deal, will miss the start of this year’s competition, beginning on April 9, the plan is for him to make his comeback during its latter stages.

However, the ECB will want to see how the elbow responds when he resumes training in the week beginning April 12 before sanctioning such a move.

If he experiences no pain, it might be viewed as preferential for him to play Twenty20 over County Championship cricket, partly due to the comparative workloads involved for a fast bowler and partly because a return to India would provide him with more high-quality experience ahead of the Twenty20 World Cup there this autumn.

The 25-year-old fast bowler is now hopeful of participating in the second half of the IPL

If a problem that prevented his selection for two Tests against Virat Kohli’s team resurfaces, surgery cannot be discounted.

That was a route the ECB’s medical team avoided when Archer was ruled out of the one-day series in India after the discomfort increased in his bowling arm.

Archer’s successful hand surgery was carried out by the same consultant that fixed Ben Stokes’ self-inflicted wrist fracture seven years ago.

The 25-year-old incurred the freakish cut prior to England duty in India when he returned from Barbados to his home in Hove in the new year and shattered a fish tank while trying to clean it in his bath.

If he experiences no pain, it might be viewed as preferential for him to play Twenty20

Leeds-based Doug Campbell removed the fragment of glass that had been trapped in a healed wound below his right middle finger for more than two months, with Archer struggling with increased irritation during the final days of his tour in the subcontinent.

Not until March 14 when he wore a protective strapping pre-match for a Twenty20 international in Ahmedabad had there been any obvious indication of an issue. The 25-year-old played two Tests and all five T20s during England’s time in India

It was Campbell however who pinned the fractured scaphoid bone in Stokes’ wrist – after he slammed a dressing room locker with the open palm of his hand in frustration following a dismissal for nought in Barbados in 2014.