England’s spinner Jack Leach, will undergo surgery after suffering a knee injury that put him on the sidelines from the 5-match Test series against India.
Leech was ruled out for the remainder of the series after he incurred an injury to his knee during the 1st Test in Hyderabad. The England team suffered a huge blow as Leach was the only experienced spinner in the England bowling line-up. The other three spinners that England brought in the tour had not played a Test match in India before.
“I’m going to have an operation to get the rest of the swelling out because it’s not budging,” Leach told BBC Radio 5 Live.
“It was quite an unfortunate one. It was the second ball of the first innings on the field, so that whole game I was playing with this knee problem,” Leach added.
“I obviously knocked it a few times throughout that game, and it has just created a long period of recovery. I need to get the operation done and then hopefully I can get back to playing cricket. I’d love to have a run of playing cricket and getting into a bit of a rhythm again and, hopefully, that can happen again once I’ve got this sorted,” Leach said on his injury.
WAS ENGLAND HURT BY LEACH’S ABSENCE?
Despite facing an issue with his knee, Leach went on to bowl 36 overs and also picked 2 wickets during the 1st Test against India in Hyderabad. The visitors won the series opener against India by 28 runs.
Leach was ruled out of the remainder of the series as the issue aggravated. However, the three rookie spinners, Tom Hartley and Shoaib Bashir stepped up in the absence of their frontline spinner to make an impact in sub-continental conditions.
Hartley, who picked up 9 wickets in his debut Test match in Hyderabad, has emerged as the leading wicket-taker in the series so far. The left-arm spinner has managed to scalp 18 wickets in 7 innings so far. Leach was replaced by his Somerset teammate, Shoaib Bashir, in the second Test match in Vizag.
The 20-year-old produced a stellar bowling spell on Day 2 of the 4th Test match in Ranchi. The young off-spinner picked up 4 wickets to derail India’s batting in their 1st innings. England did not have the services of Rehan Ahmed this season as the youngster had to leave India, mid-way through the series due to personal reasons.
Leach’s battle with injuries continues to haunt him as he was also ruled out of last year’s Ashes against Australia due to a lower-back stress fracture. It took the spinner more than 6 months to return to competitive cricket only to suffer yet another injury.