Lewis backing Leach to have Indians in a spin
JACK Leach has been tipped as England’s potential match-winner on the final day of the first Test against India, after proving he has not been scarred by a barrage of sixes off the bat of Rishabh Pant.
England have been ahead of the game for the vast majority of the series opener in Chennai and head into the fifth morning needing nine wickets to claim victory, with a huge lead of 380 to play with.
The only stage where India have really threatened to flip the momentum came when Pant went on the counter-attack in India’s first innings and smashed Leach for five sixes on his way to 91 - including four in the space of just seven deliveries.
It was the kind of assault that can leave its mark on a bowler but Leach was unfazed when he returned to the attack with figures of nought for 100 on Monday, dismissing Ravichandran Ashwin and Shahbaz Nadeem to help wrap up the tail.
He was then trusted with the new ball as the hosts padded up for the second time and took out Rohit Sharma’s off stump with a handy dose of turn past the outside edge. That left the scoreboard at 39 for one chasing a world record 420.
“I was so pleased Leachy got that wicket tonight, I thought he really deserved that,” said bowling coach Jon Lewis.
“Every day as a cricketer you go out wanting five wickets or a hundred, but that doesn’t often happen.
“You are going to have more bad days than good days as a cricketer and you are going to have to deal with those. Jack showed his character with the way he came back after Pant got after him yesterday.
“He’s bowled an absolutely beauty to get out Rohit - who is obviously a class, class player - and looks a real threat on this pitch. He could walk away with four or five wickets tomorrow and we could win a Test match I’m pretty sure people won’t be talking about Rishabh Pant’s first-innings runs if he does that.”
Lewis also revealed that Leach had been following team orders when he was taken down by the Indian wicketkeeper, with a hint that they may invite Pant to try his luck in the same way again.
With the volume of runs in the bank, England could afford a few more maximums in pursuit of the key scalp.
“Jack was asked to do a really specific job for the team and I thought Pant’s options were really high risk. Obviously he got more runs than he would have wanted him to, but the percentages were still very much in his favour,” said Lewis.
While England’s decision not to enforce the follow-on was widely expected, their refusal to declare even as their lead stretched past 400 was the cause of fierce external debate.
Even Sir Alastair Cook, remembered as a largely conservative skipper, had predicted on television that Joe Root would give his bowlers more than the 103 overs they were eventually left with after being bowled out for 178.
In the dressing room, the decision to bat on and effectively take an India victory out of the equation made perfect sense.
“It’s obviously first game of the series and whilst you want to get off to a really strong start, you don’t really want to give India a chance to win,” said Lewis.
“They have some fine players and you also want to have attacking fields all day, especially for our spin bowlers. So to get as many runs, to keep the rate high for them, feels like our best chance to win the game.
“We were very comfortable with the amount of overs we wanted to bowl and it obviously gives us a bit of a bite with the second new ball, if required.”
TORQUAY United return to National League action today with a game against troubled club Wealdstone after booking their place in the quarter-finals of the FA Trophy with the 2-0 win at Southport on Saturday.
Torquay were handed a trip to Woking for a February 27, last-eight tie, but it is game 22 in the National League that is Gary Johnson’s immediate concern - and the manager says he wants to ‘disappoint’ the other teams in the promotion chase by picking up another three points.
He said: “We are looking forward to it. In training I have to make sure that they are all ready and mentally and physically for the Wealdstone game because every three points we get disappoints a lot of other teams in our league.
“You can’t take any team lightly at the moment - they are all big games. Wealdstone are in a little bit of turmoil with the manager leaving etc but sometimes that can galvanise a team, depending on who is doing the re-galvanising.”
Wealdstone, who are 18th in the National League, lost their manager Dean Brennan last week after he walked out and former assistant Stuart Maynard was put in charge.
Brennan blamed his relationship with the board after being denied the chance to talk to Barnet about their manager’s position.
Brennan told the press in London: “I was also becoming uncomfortable with the relationship between the chairman and my assistant Stuart Maynard, which I believe was beginning to undermine my position as manager at the club.”
Maynard’s first game ended in a 4-1 FA Trophy defeat against National League North side Darlington.
For his part, Johnson has some decisions to make after swapping players around at Southport. The manager had said Ben Wynter and Gary Warren might be ready after injuries but in the end he decided to go without them. Both of those players might be better placed for tonight.
Striker Josh Umerah hobbled off with a dead leg from a challenge at Haig Avenue and is doubtful for tonight. Another doubt is Aarone Nemane, who Johnson said missed the Southport game after feeling a tight hamstring, and that problem might need further monitoring.
Johnson will also have to choose between Billy Waters and Rob Street if he is going to pair one striker with No 10 Connor Lemonheigh-Evans, unless he goes with both in a front two with Lemonheigh-Evans in midfield instead.
Whatever he decides to do, Torquay should be strong enough to see off Wealdstone - and anything less than a win will mean the team is not ‘disappointing’ the likes of Sutton United and Stockport County in second and third - and Johnson won’t be happy about that.
IT IS perhaps a reflection on the closeness of League Two that, this season, Exeter City have not managed to string three league wins together, yet they occupy a place in the top five. But that is the challenge that Matt Taylor will set his players as they make the long trip to Barrow tonight.
City moved into the play-off zone with a fantastic 3-2 win over Bradford City at the weekend, which followed last Tuesday’s 1-0 win at Stevenage. A win in chilly Cumbria tonight would be most welcome and could push the Grecians into the top three, if results elsewhere go in their favour.
As it stands, there are only 12 points separating third-placed Tranmere Rovers, who Exeter thrashed 5-1, and 18th-placed Scunthorpe United. The old adage that ‘anyone can beat anyone in League Two’ most certainly rings true.
“It’s incredible,” Taylor said. “People don’t believe you when you say managers don’t look at the league, but we have 20 games left and I can only look at what is next and that is Barrow.
“You sensed how happy I was on Saturday because that was a big moment to come back from 1-0 and 2-1 down, it is six points and two wins on the bounce and all of a sudden, it makes you feel better about everything that you are doing.
“It’s a good reflection of where we are at, but it can soon go away. We have Barrow and Oldham respectively, but all of our focus is on Barrow and that is a hell of a journey and a hell of a game of football. But we should be feeling good about ourselves on the back of Saturday.
“I felt that was more like us earlier in the season, with the way we played and the way we ran. Maybe Robbie (Willmott) coming in and Jacko (Sparkes) on the left made us feel more like that.
“The close we stay to a group of good teams for longer gives us a better chance when we have everyone back and the pitches firm up. We have Randell Williams to come back and Sam Stubbs to come in and they are good players that are going to affect it.
“We need to be within touching distance, or close enough that, with the amount of games left when they do come back, they can make a difference.”
All eyes will again be on the weather forecast with snow falling overnight and more forecast until lunchtime when the sun will come out and offer brief respite. But come kick-off, at 7pm, temperatures are expected to plummet to zero placing the match in some doubt with the potential for a frozen pitch.
This rescheduled game was postponed just before Christmas, due to a waterlogged pitch, and no doubt both club’s will want to get the match on with fewer windows of opportunity in which to play the game before now and the scheduled end of season. Surely, with more and more games being postponed with each
Saturday or midweek, the EFL must make a stand and extend the season?
Unless they hear otherwise, City will head north, though, with Taylor again looking at the options available to him for selection. Lewis Page was the latest to suffer at the hands of this intense run of games and he, along with Rory McArdle, are expected to sit out the trip to Barrow.
“We will assess it,” Taylor said. “These are not niggles, they are strains and they are going to keep on happening when you are sat on a bus for seven or eight hours before a game and then sat on a bus for seven or eight hours after the game.
“Lewis didn’t start the game last Tuesday, but it is a stress on the body. Pagey, with his history of hamstring trouble, just felt it tighten up, but it is another body that we can’t afford at this moment in time.
“It is a shame to see people get injured and we have picked up Rory on Tuesday, which was a freak injury and then Pagey on Saturday, which was a muscle.”
EXETER City manager Matt Taylor has already set his players a challenge for tonight’s trip to Barrow: Let’s make it three wins in a row for the first time this season.
After back-to-back successes at Stevenage last Tuesday and then against Bradford at the weekend, the Grecians have moved up to fifth place in an ever-congested League Two table.
But the one thing that have not done so far this campaign is win three league games in succession, which they will do with a win in freezing Cumbria tonight.
“There’s the challenge and that will be my team talk on Tuesday,” Taylor said. “We will change the team and we may change formation, we will see who is fit.”
Taylor will again ring the changes to keep things fresh and in order to inject as much energy and freshness in his team as possible, as the Grecians continue to plough their way through a gruelling run of two games a week until mid-March. But rather than complain about the hectic schedule, Taylor is embracing it, although he acknowledges it is having a detrimental effect on his players’ health.
“They are lucky because they are doing a job they love, but the strain on their bodies is huge,” he said.
“We are doing so little preparation that the lads are playing, recovering, playing, recovering, so you can’t look too far into formations or tactics at this stage of the season, it is all about getting them fit and getting the energy in the right places and then letting the lads play and responding to anything that happens.
“People keep saying: ‘why do you keep changing a winning team?’ We have to. These lads are at such a low (physically) at the moment.
“It’s going to be cold and hopefully the snow stays on the other side of the country because we don’t want to go all that way to have more games called off, but it is taking it’s toll, that’s for sure.”