Leach relives miracle in Leeds
JACK LEACH, THE MAN WHO HAD THE BEST SEAT IN THE HOUSE, RELIVES STOKES’S MIRACLE KNOCK
SUNDAY, AUGUST 25 4.17pm
STOKES’S HEADINGLEY HEROICS
In the first of our series looking back at the greatest moments of the sporting year, we reflect on Ben Stokes’s incredible innings in the third Ashes test at headingley — and speak to the unlikely hero who saw it through with him to the very end...
There were moments during Ben Stokes’s once- in- a- lifetime hundred at headingley when Jack Leach felt like joining in with the crowd — as he puts it — ‘going mental’. There was only one problem: he was batting at the other end.
When Leach, england’s No 11, walked out to the middle on the fourth afternoon of the third Test, they still needed an improbable 73 to win. They were on the brink of going 2-0 down. The euphoria of the World Cup miracle at Lord’s six weeks earlier was set to be replaced by something less pleasant.
By any sensible reckoning, Australia were about to retain the Ashes with two Tests to play, turning the games at Old Trafford and the Oval into a prolonged victory parade. For england, it did not bear thinking about.
While Stokes was still there, though, they could dream of chasing down 359 — a full 27 more than they had ever managed to win in the fourth innings of a Test. The previous evening, as he and Joe root, his not- out partner, wound down in the dressing room, Stokes revealed that something had been bugging him. Or rather, someone. There were no prizes for guessing who.
All series, David Warner had been lying low, chastened into silence by the fact this was his first Test series back since the sandpaper farce in Cape Town in March 2018. Now, after hitting 61 in the first innings — his only double-figure score of the Ashes — Warner’s old snarl was returning. he began sledging again.
Stokes’s view of the matter was simple. he could take the chirping from pretty well all the Australians. But he drew the line at Warner. ‘The one thing that is going to drive me to win this game, to be there not out at the end,’ he told root, ‘is shaking David Warner’s hand before I leave the field.’
Yet england’s post-lunch collapse suggested Warner would have the last laugh. Jonny Bairstow sliced to slip, and Jos Buttler was run out after Stokes — his line of vision blocked by short leg — failed to register the presence of Travis head at midwicket. Chris Woakes drove to extra cover, Jofra Archer hoicked to deep midwicket and Stuart Broad was pinned by a yorker. It was all over. Well, nearly.
A few weeks earlier, Leach had made 92 against Ireland at Lord’s as nightwatchman — proof that he had turned himself from a tailend Charlie into a competent lower- order operator, if not an all- rounder. Walking out that afternoon at headingley, he made himself a simple pledge.
‘I didn’t know how we were going to score the 73 we needed,’ he tells
Sportsmail. ‘I was just hoping I’d play a decent innings and make it hard for Australia. I wasn’t thinking about winning, but I wasn’t thinking about losing either. If I could get myself in, there was no reason I couldn’t bat time.’
Stokes explained the gameplan: he would deal with four or five balls every over, leaving Leach with one or two. The clarity helped. Slowly, the pair set about turning a lost cause into an imperishable memory, Stokes hitting sixes and scampering twos, Leach defending for his life, and occasionally holding up play to wipe his glasses.
Those glasses developed a character of their own. A Twitter account dedicated to the cloth he used to clean them (@LeachCloth) earned more than 3,500 followers, while his optician was tracked down on holiday. he claimed the glasses were steamresistant and shouldn’t need wiping. Leach puts the record straight.
‘I have no hair, and the drops of sweat were running down on to them,’ he says. ‘Because of the importance of the situation, I wanted to have the cleanest pair of glasses possible to face up to every ball. Yes, I wanted to give myself time, with the crowd going mental. But it was also important not to feel any regrets if I got out.’
Instead, the regrets almost came from a different source. Moments after Stokes had launched Nathan Lyon for his eighth and final six, leaving england two runs short of victory, Leach almost blew it.
Setting off for a non- existent single, he realised Stokes had not budged. As Pat Cummins threw the ball from backward point in a gentle parabola to Lyon at the non- striker’s end, Leach was stranded mid-pitch. Incredibly, Lyon fluffed it. ‘I still can’t quite believe I went for the single,’ says Leach. ‘That will haunt me for ever. For Nathan Lyon to drop the ball — he’d have taken that 99 times out of 100. I don’t know if such a thing exists, but it felt like fate was on our side. It was a horrible moment. I was
still going by our plan for me to face one or two balls in the over, but Stokesy had the idea of finishing it off there and then.
‘In hindsight, we should have had a chat halfway through that over to make sure we were on the same wavelength.
‘It all went in slow motion — and really quickly as well. I felt sick turning back.’
The drama was not over. Next ball, Stokes missed a heave over midwicket, and Lyon pleaded with umpire Joel Wilson for lbw. It looked close — so close, in fact, that hawkeye later signalled three reds, which would have spelled doom for the batsman. But Wilson had said not out, and six balls earlier Australia had used up their last review on a speculative lbw appeal against Leach.
his view from the other end? ‘I felt it was going down leg.’
Now he would face the first ball of an over for the first time in the partnership. From the third delivery, he tucked Cummins off his hip, and hurried through for the most important single of his career.
‘The scores were tied,’ he says. ‘We couldn’t lose the Ashes that day. Then, with the field up, I knew Stokesy would smash it. It was probably the only short and wide ball Cummins bowled all series. What a moment. It will live with me for ever.’
Understandably, Leach — whose contribution to an unbroken last-wicket stand of 76 was one from 17 balls, while Stokes finished with 135 — lost control of his emotions.
‘I ran at Stokesy and forgot we were both wearing helmets, so we grilled each other in the face,’ he says. ‘I didn’t want it to finish. You go mental, you stop for a minute, then you go mental again.
‘I still get goosebumps. It’s one of those moments that you see so much of on social media, you almost forget you were there at the time. For most of the innings, I was practically a spectator, and I wanted to go mental, too. But I tried to act cool. “Nice, Stokesy, keep going”.’
That evening, after root had led his side back to the middle to enjoy a beer and soak up the elation, Leach was encouraged by Buttler, an old friend from Somerset days, to re-enact his single. To Leach’s embarrassment, it ended up on social media.
When Australia finally retained the urn in the next Test in Manchester, Steve Smith mocked Leach in their celebrations by donning a pair of glasses.
hilariously, they claimed he was mimicking former opener Chris rogers, who had retired from Test cricket four years earlier.
england were amused by the explanation, and at the Oval, where they won to ensure the first drawn Ashes since 1972, encouraged Leach’s left-arm spin with cries of ‘ Bowling, Bucky!’ — rogers’ nickname. It worked: he wrapped up the match with two wickets in two balls.
Leach was not about to take offence at Smith’s ribbing. ‘I deserved it after what I did at headingley. It was all in good spirits. he came up to me at the Oval and said the glasses business wasn’t to do with me.
‘I said I was a bit disappointed if that’s the case, but they were a bit under the pump and didn’t want to do anything controversial.’
headingley lived on in more substantial ways.
‘People would come up to me and tell me where they were when they were watching it,’ Leach says. ‘Some were people who didn’t like cricket before. That was very special. To play a small part in the greatest innings I’ve ever seen was amazing.’