‘The setbacks are there to test me’
Spinner Jack Leach has learnt to keep a positive outlook on a ‘rocky road’ to England’s Test squad
Frustrated, England’s left-arm spinner Jack Leach stares out of the Shangri-la Hotel watching the tropical rain lash down all morning, on what should be the first day of England’s second and last warm-up game before the three-test series begins in Galle on Tuesday.
It cleared up nicely in the afternoon, too, turning as mild and cool after the rain as Sri Lanka’s west coast can be, just right for an acclimatising bowl. But the Colombo Cricket Club ground
– the Raj’s most pukka club and briefly a Test venue – was so boggy that the 50-overs-per-side game rearranged for today might also be cancelled.
If so, Leach will not have bowled a ball in the middle in any game in Sri Lanka, prejudicing his chance of selection for the Galle Test.
Before a Test series, every player looks at his counterpart in the opposition and plans to outdo him: if most of the XI do so, they will win. Leach already knows he will outlast his opposite number, Sri Lanka’s left-arm spinner Rangana Herath, who is to retire for the sake of his 40-year-old knees after the first Test. The downside is Herath has experience on his side, and 430 Test wickets to Leach’s two.
Frustrated, yet philosophical. Being deprived of match-practice – and Leach could only watch and carry the drinks on Tuesday, while part-time spinners Joe Denly and Joe Root bowled 14.5 overs between them – is only the latest of many setbacks, which have been even more this year than normally, Leach has learnt to endure.
“Now I’ve kind of learnt they [disappointments] are always going to come along,” Leach reflects while the monsoon has its say. “It’s not just, ‘Ah, you get your chance and you keep going up’ – it’s a bit of a rocky road. I definitely believe those things are there to test me and challenge me and make me better. When I’m in the highs, I’m thinking, ‘Right, stay switched on here because it’s not going to be long till the next low’. When I’m in the lows, I’m also thinking it’s not going to be long till I’m feeling good again. That’s a good lesson I’ve learnt and something that keeps me looking forward.”
All of England’s batsmen – Rory Burns the latest – have attended public school; the bowlers, except for Stuart Broad and Sam Curran, went to state school. Leach had to learn the game on the path of his Taunton home, playing with his father and younger brother, and regularly had to cope with disappointment from the age of 12 when he played for Taunton Deane second XI and adult batsmen had no mercy in hitting him out of the ground. It was such a valuable experience, however, that Leach represented England Under-15s, alongside Root.
Next disappointment was that Somerset did not take him on to their staff after Leach left their academy, so he went to one of the universities that Marylebone Cricket Club subsidised, Cardiff, where he read sports science.
“I had to find another way to continue my cricketing development, so for me going to uni was the best way, then go back in the summers to Somerset to keep my foot in the door.
“It was nice to play for Cardiff against first-class opposition, like my debut against Somerset [in 2012]. Nick Compton and James Hildreth put on a record partnership [450 for the second wicket, both batsmen helping themselves to double centuries] and that was an eye-opener about what I needed to do. I was a bit schoolboyish in pace and realised I needed more craft and spin.”
Remarkably, two members of this touring party were studying simultaneously at Cardiff: the other being Burns, already inked in as England’s successor to Alastair Cook.
“We were first-years together and I remember him scoring some big runs, like a double hundred, then I think he signed for Surrey. He was driven about his cricket, so he just did the one year and took that opportunity, and he hasn’t looked back.”
Being discovered to have an illegal action – by a machine at Loughborough – was a disappointment too, but again Leach made the most of it and he reckons his action is now “stronger”, which it appears to be. When his England call-up came in March, it was too late for him to make the four days of red-ball practice and he went straight into the Christchurch Test after a few nets. So if he can do that in New Zealand, England’s tour selectors may think he can do the same in Sri Lanka. On his debut, Leach was steady in every department and might have won the game, given better close-catchers.
This summer he was concussed – as one tends to be when batting against Morne Morkel – then had a thumb broken in the Taunton nets and therefore lost his Test place. One big plus, though, is that Leach, in having “Ciderabad” for his home ground, has taken the new ball before. Leach found it “a bit ‘slidey’ for the first couple of overs” when he did so against Lancashire last season, but still took seven for 74. Moeen Ali likes a newish ball, whereas Adil Rashid needs some roughage to grip. Having been admitted to the England spinners’ inner circle, he finds their company “really helpful” and “hilarious” as Moeen makes jokes at the expense of Rashid, who “acts dumb”. Moeen has told Leach the three of them will have dinner with Herath, to learn how to be patient and subtle in changing pace – but only after the first Test. Leach, after all his setbacks, is due some just deserts.
‘Disappointments always come along. It’s not just, you get your chance and you keep going up’