Jack Leach must be wondering which member of the pantheon he wronged in a former life now that he has been ruled out of this summer’s Ashes series with a stress fracture to his lower back.
Leach has always had to wrestle with an assumed wisdom that he is not quite the athletic fit for modern global cricket. Of course, his spectacle-polishing alongside Ben Stokes at Headingley in 2019 gained him cult status as an unlikely hero but his hopes of a serious winter were seriously dented by his hospitalisation in New Zealand with sepsis. His medication for Crohn’s disease is an immunosuppressant which enabled his relatively-routine gastroenteritis to escalate into life-threatening blood poisoning. Even before this, in 2016 his action had been questioned by the ECB, forcing him into lengthy remedial work to bring him back into compliance and in 2018 he broke a thumb soon after his England debut, forcing him to the sidelines once again. And before that, in 2015 he fainted in the bathroom at home and fractured his skull in two places, ruling him out for most of the domestic season.
I mean, jeepers, the man is unlucky.
Under Joe Root, Leach was in and out of the side, including that watch-from-behind-your-hands moment when he was selected ahead of Stuart Broad at The Gabba in 2021 and was absolutely mauled by David Warner and the rest of the Australian batters. He seemed to be rolled out to be beaten black and blue by marauding batsmen and then hidden away in shame, on repeat.
But under Ben Stokes, perhaps it’s the memory of Headingley or just the Bazball approach more generally that backs Leach to the hilt. Stokes has thrown his support behind Leach, setting aggressive fields even when the opposition take on his left-arm spin. Everything had been looking rosy for Taunton’s finest, then…apart from the concussion sustained while fielding against New Zealand at Lord’s in 2022.
Somehow, despite all of these setbacks, Leach was the third highest wicket-taker in international cricket in 2022 and joint-highest wicket taker for England since Stokes took on the captaincy. According to Wisden’s Yas Rana, Leach has bowled 179 overs more than any other England bowler under Stokes; this number would surely only have grown had Leach been able to participate this summer.
Rarely has a cricketer been as unlucky as Jack Leach in following bursts of outstanding cricket with injuries and illness. Perhaps this is one reason why he manages one accolade with no luck whatsoever: he is undoubtedly one of the nicest guys in the England setup, with hardly a word said against him. I think his bad luck does all of that for him and all England supporters can do is get behind him and wish him well for a speedy recovery, looking forward to when we might see him in action again.