At the beginning of the summer, Jack Leach found himself out of the Test team and unsure about how much enjoyment he was getting from the game. The previous year had been marred by a stress fracture in his back, and the start of this year by a knee injury. Just as he returned to first-team cricket, he received a call from Brendon McCullum informing him that he would not be included in England's next Test squad. "After a long period out with injury," he said, "I felt that might be the end."
Now, he is back in the team and in Rawalpindi, where he took what he considers "probably my favorite wicket" to win the first Test of the 2022 series against Pakistan. In the lead-up to Thursday's series decider, the ground staff are preparing a pitch that they hope will favor their own spinners but might also assist their opponents.
In between, he had one of his best English summers, taking 45 wickets at 22.77 in the County Championship. "It was about getting back to remembering what I'm about and being content with that," he said. "When I first joined the England team, it's fantastic, and then you start thinking: 'What do I need to do to improve?' It's a delicate balance between striving to get better and trying to change. Sometimes I was guilty of trying to change, and then you forget your main strengths. This summer provided a great opportunity to simplify everything: just do what I'm good at."
Initially, there was little contact from the England setup as he worked on rebuilding his confidence. "I didn't need a lot of words from them; I felt there was a lot I just needed to do for myself," he said. "From there, whatever would happen would happen."
That changed in July when Shoaib Bashir, the then 20-year-old who had become both his county understudy and his Test replacement, took a five-wicket haul as England beat West Indies at Trent Bridge. Ben Stokes decided that Leach could use some reassurance. That evening, England's captain called from the team hotel. "I felt really happy and proud," Leach said of that call. "He just wanted to tell me how great I was, basically, in the way that he does, and just recognize how I've dealt with the situation."
"That gave me a chance to say some nice things back to him about what he'd given me, probably going back to 2019 at Headingley. He gave me that moment. I think there's just a mutual respect there, so it was a nice conversation to have for sure. It just reminded me that I was going about things in the right way and gave me confidence that I still had something to offer the team and was part of it in a small way. That gave me good motivation for the remainder of the summer, I'd say. It was a nice reminder that there was still a chance to play."
From there, and knowing that this trip to Pakistan could offer a way back into the squad, the 33-year-old set about playing without pressure. "It's about making sure you're enjoying the actual game rather than what comes with it," he said. "It's great playing for England and being part of that team, then the injuries happened and you find yourself really down about it. Why am I here? I just felt I needed to rediscover the kid-like mentality of why you play the game. You have that on your journey up to playing for England, that nothing-to-lose mentality, then it's like: 'I'm here now, I want to keep that.' It's tiring, it's stressful, it's not enjoyable."
"But the upsides, the opportunity, all the things Baz talks to us about – I felt like I loved all those things but maybe I was being a bit of a fraud, in terms of enjoying them but not actually living by them. I had an opportunity over the summer, as an individual, to live by them a little bit more. I tried to do that, and it certainly made me enjoy the game more."
That sense of joy has survived the potentially awkward experience of working with Bashir, knowing that England have identified the now 21-year-old as a key player for both the present and the future, and the implications of that for Leach. "It's been a whirlwind journey for him," Leach said. "I guess it was two years ago when he was trialling at Somerset and I remember having a conversation with [the former wicketkeeper] Steve Davies, who I was very close to at Somerset, and he was like: 'There's this off-spinner and he's proper.' And I'd seen him and I said: 'I love his action, it looks amazing.' We were like, 'We've got to sign him.'"
"That obviously happened and his rise has been amazing. He'll just be learning so much so quickly. He's quality. We have a good relationship. I try and help where I can. I don't want to overload him with stuff, I feel he's just learning through playing and it's all going to come quite naturally."
If the ground staff have their way, both spinners will be crucial to England's chances of victory this week. Leach acknowledges that "there's different mental pressures definitely with playing on more helpful surfaces as a spinner"; his most important task could be protecting them both from those.
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