Wiping his glasses, resolute Leach plays the perfect partner
England No11 kept clear head and vision to help make history, writes Tim Wigmore at Headingley
There were 73 runs to win, and a raucous Headingley had just been deafened by the sound of impending Australian glory. As Jack Leach, England’s bespectacled No11, walked to the middle, all that seemed unresolved were the details of exactly how Australia would retain the urn.
Throughout his professional career, Leach has not been much of a batsman. He has a first-class average of 12. For Somerset this season, he averages 4.5 from 13 innings. He had been selected for England for many good reasons; run production was not one of them.
So the situation that Leach was thrust into while he kept Ben Stokes company was not really analogous to anything that sportsmen in other games go through. In other sports, however great the pressure they are under, athletes are at least being tested on the skills that have got them to such an elevated position.
This was completely different. Leach is England’s No11. And while he has been selected because he is England’s best Test spinner, thousands of cricketers up and down the land – not just professionals but also good club players – would consider themselves better batsmen.
A month ago, Leach belied his first-class record to make 92 in a Test against Ireland, almost scoring the first century by an English nightwatchman. If the opposition were far more modest than England would face in the Ashes, Leach’s innings was crucial in England winning in spite of being bundled out for 85 in the
first innings. That innings benefited from a healthy dollop of luck – Leach played and missed an inordinate amount – but was also vindication of his commitment to self-improvement in the nets.
At Headingley, Leach did not even have to think about how to score runs: that was not his job. Instead, he acted as the enabler for Stokes’s brilliance, a truth that Stokes recognised by being unable to watch his batting partner face deliveries. Every ball that Leach survived was cheered even more boisterously than the last.
Glenn Mcgrath always longed to be batting at the end to win his country a Test match; for all his bowling greatness, this eluded him throughout his 124 Tests. With
He scored only one run, but what a run it was. This was the moment England tied the scores
every ball that evaded his stumps or the edge of his bat, Leach edged closer to realising Mcgrath’s, and every tail-ender’s, dream.
But there is no sentimentality to Ashes cricket. Just ask Michael Kasprowicz, whose batting from No11 hauled Australia to within two runs of England’s total at Edgbaston in 2005. Kasprowicz added 59 for the last wicket, yet was left with the sting of defeat.
Through Leach’s doughtiness and Stokes’s impudent hitting, England had whittled that target of 73 down to just two. Stokes was on strike from Nathan Lyon, and attempted another reverse sweep. The ball went to short fine leg and, for a few perilous moments, Leach’s equanimity deserted him.
Somehow, Lyon fumbled the ball, squandering the chance. And, somehow, Stokes was reprieved the next ball when plumb lbw. In the bedlam, Stokes was unable to shepherd the strike. And so Pat Cummins had potentially six balls to attack Leach.
A wicket would render all of Leach’s resolve in vain. Cummins reckoned that the best way to scupper England’s Ashes dreams lay in the same type of short ball that had done for Kasprowicz. With short leg and leg gully bracing themselves, the first delivery was a high bouncer which Leach left safely alone. The second was dug into his body; Leach flicked it down, to leg gully, and resisted any notion of a madcap run. The third ball attacked Leach’s ribs once again. This time, Leach steered the ball past short leg. Leach scored only one run, but what a run it was. For this was the moment that England tied the scores – meaning that, whatever happened, the Ashes would remain alive. All that remained was for Stokes to complete the miracle, triggering Leach’s embrace. “The best kiss I’ve ever had,” Stokes joked.
In the moments after, Leach removed his spectacles to greet his delirious team-mates. They all knew that, without Leach’s one off 17 balls, Stokes would not have been able to thrash 74 from 45 at the other end. Without Leach’s meticulousness, there could have been no Stokes madness, and no Headingley miracle to rival 1981. England’s Ashes hopes would already be extinguished.
A cricketer selected for one skill had, somehow, survived in his weaker suit for exactly 60 minutes to help his country in their hour of Ashes need, facing down one of the most ferocious pace attacks to land on this shore this century. Stokes will always have his moment – and so will Leach, the No11 who was indispensable in England’s Ashes heist.