The Daily Telegraph - Sport

Nervous 90s got to me, admits nightwatch­man

Leach feels the pressure as century grows closer England’s batting hero says side have ‘big belief’

- By Tim Wigmore at Lord’s

Jack Leach said that he now knew what the nervous 90s were like after his unlikely 92 as a nightwatch­man helped England to 303 for nine on the second day at Lord’s, a lead of 181, despite a collapse later in the day.

Leach had a first-class average of just 10.97 before this Test, with a top score of 66 in 108 innings. But, on a tense day, he came close to making the first century by an England nightwatch­man before falling to Tim Murtagh.

“I can’t believe it really,” Leach said, after sharing a stand of 145 with Jason Roy. “It was good fun to be out there. It was great to bat with J-roy – he gave me a lot of confidence and allowed me to just play the way I wanted to play. We had a nice partnershi­p, so that was pleasing.

“Nervous 90s are definitely a thing. You think, ‘Argh I’m only two shots away’ and I was having some weird thoughts. It was hot and I was tired as well. I had cramp in my forearm and quad at lunchtime.

“Trying to bring it back to my next ball was how I tried to deal with those things and, yeah, nervous 90s – I was trying to tell myself not to think about it, which kind of made me think about it. I’ll learn from that if I get the chance,” he laughed.

Leach has struggled with his batting form since suffering concussion after a blow to the head in a Specsavers County Championsh­ip game for Somerset last year, when he was hit by South African pace bowler Morne Morkel.

“It banged me on the side of the head and my glass lens came popping out. It was concussion and I was out for a couple of weeks,” he said. “It probably had a knock-on effect on my batting. I’ve worked hard on that and, slowly, I feel a lot more comfortabl­e. It was nice to face Boyd Rankin, someone who gets a lot of bounce, and I feel comfortabl­e with that.

“I work hard on my batting. I’ve found it really hard this year. Maybe there was a bit more adrenaline out there in front of a Lord’s crowd, somewhere I’ve watched a lot of cricket.

“To be out in the middle there’s a nothing-to-lose attitude. I felt really focused in terms of one ball at a time. That’s something I’ll take forward.”

Leach’s father had planned to come to see him play – he has not seen any of Leach’s previous four Tests, which were all away from home – but he stayed away because of the heat. Instead, he watched the game at his son’s house.

“He doesn’t have Sky, so I gave him my house key and he went over and he’s literally been at mine watching the whole time,” Leach said. “He was going to come today, but he saw the weather forecast and said it was too hot.”

Leach said there would be “pressure on Ireland”, who lost both their first two Test matches, in the fourth innings of the game.

“It’s the first time they’ve had this experience of probably being favourites to win the game. We don’t need to hide away from that. But we do believe we’ve got a great chance.

“We’ve already talked in the dressing room about the game at Edgbaston last year against India where they were chasing 180 and came up 30 short. The boys believe this is a tougher wicket than that one, so we’ll have big belief going into tomorrow and we’ll have to bowl really well.”

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United Kingdom