Leach out of first Test after breaking thumb
ENGLAND suffered a blow before today’s selection for the first Test of the summer against Pakistan at Lord’s next week when Jack Leach was ruled out with a broken thumb. Somerset’s left-arm spinner was struck in the nets at Taunton yesterday preparing for the last day of the Championship match against Hampshire. He was practising his batting against coach Jason Kerr’s dog thrower and immediately feared the worst. A break to his bowling hand was confirmed and Leach, who made a promising debut against New Zealand in Christchurch in the last Test of England’s poor winter, will miss both Tests against Pakistan with Moeen Ali likely to be recalled. It is a cruel blow for Leach and further frustrates England’s attempts to develop a matchwinning spinner before next winter’s tours of Sri Lanka and West Indies after Mason Crane suffered a stress fracture of his back in New Zealand. Now Ed Smith must pick his first side at Lord’s today as national selector with the spinning cupboard worryingly bare. Moeen was dropped for that final Test against New Zealand after a 50-match run in the Test side and has spent most of the last month on the sidelines in his first stint in the Indian Premier League. Yet England will now almost certainly bring him back to play at Lord’s — along with Ben Stokes, Chris Woakes and possibly Jos Buttler — in the home conditions where he took 30 wickets last year in an outstanding summer. If Smith really wants to be bold he could throw in 19-year-old Surrey off-spinner Amar Virdi, who has made an excellent start to the season and bowled England captain Joe Root on Sunday, or Somerset’s 20-year-old Dom Bess. That would be a brave move by the new chief selector but both young off-spinners are very raw and a debut now is almost certainly too soon for them. James Vince, meanwhile, could not have picked a better time to hit an unbeaten 201 for Hampshire against Somerset to salvage a draw and enhance his chances of keeping his place in the middle order at Lord’s.