Test milestone all the more special after Leach’s struggles

JACK LEACH spoke of his pride after taking his 100th Test wicket — and said the milestone made up for the challenges he has faced during a career often threatened by illness and injury.

A well-known sufferer of Crohn’s disease, Leach has at various points been struck down by sepsis, Covid and concussion — and was in danger of missing the first

Test at Rawalpindi after a virus swept through the England camp.

But he recovered to take the match-winning wicket in the gloom, and on the second day in Multan helped blow away Pakistan’s middle order with the key wickets of Saud Shakeel and Mohammad Rizwan, before finishing with four for 98 to earn a priceless lead.

Shakeel, superbly caught by Jimmy Anderson, made Leach the 20th England spinner to reach 100 in Tests. And his average (33) is lower than other, more celebrated, slow left-armers — Monty Panesar, Ashley Giles, Phil Tufnell and Phil Edmonds among them.

‘I can’t really believe it,’ he said. ‘It’s more than I felt I would ever achieve. I need to remember that. As sportsmen, it’s easy to just push on to the next thing, and nothing’s ever enough.

‘But if you told me when I was a kid that I’d take 100 wickets, I would have laughed at you. So yes, it is special.’

The pick of his dismissals was the ball that did for Rizwan. Pitching on leg stump, it turned past the right-hander’s back-foot prod to hit middle and off. He added: ‘It felt good coming out of the hand.

‘He’d just hit me for four over the top, so I tried to put a little bit more on that one.’

In the immediate aftermath of the Rawalpindi win, Leach half-jokingly said he felt a ‘bit of a fraud’, having nipped in with the final wicket after England’s seamers had done a lot of the heavy lifting.

But he removed Pakistan opener Abdullah Shafique on the first evening in Multan, then built on Ollie Robinson’s crucial dismissal of Babar Azam on the second morning to put England in charge.

‘I’m just loving playing for England, the most I’ve ever loved it,’ he said.

‘There have been some lows along the way, but this does sort of make it all worth it.’