Jack Leach has been dramatically ruled out of the Ashes with a lower back stress fracture, and England are considering a raft of options including asking Moeen Ali to reverse his Test retirement.
With just 11 days to the opening Test at Edgbaston, Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum have been left desperately searching the 18 counties for a spinning replacement. Other candidates include Rehan Ahmed, Will Jacks, Liam Dawson or even recent white-ball specialist Adil Rashid.
Leach, who had a scan on Sunday after feeling some discomfort during the Test against Ireland at Lord’s, has been an integral part of England’s plans.
He is the only bowler to have played all 13 Tests in the Bazball era – taking 45 wickets, including a first 10-wicket haul against New Zealand at Headingley last summer – and his ability to bowl long spells was looking more crucial than ever with question marks still hanging over Stokes’s bowling fitness.
Leach’s Test career has been revitalised under the leadership of Stokes – with whom he shared the victorious 10‑wicket stand during the Headingley Test of 2019 (famously contributing one not out). Stokes has encouraged an attacking mindset, set attacking fields, and trusted his man; Leach has visibly grown in confidence. “I feel like I belong in the team now,” he said in an interview in the Lord’s Ireland Test programme.
The stress fracture is the latest in a long line of health issues that Leach has had to negotiate during his career. He has suffered from Crohn’s disease, an inflammatory bowel disease, and had to be substituted out of the first Test of the Bazball era with concussion after landing on his head fielding on the boundary.
He broke a thumb in the nets the day before he would have been picked for his first home Test in 2019 and, in his comeback match for Somerset, was hit on the head by Surrey’s Morne Morkel and ruled out of the rest of the game with concussion. He then contracted sepsis, and went into hospital, during England’s tour of New Zealand in November 2019. He also missed a huge chunk of the 2014 season, just after breaking into the Somerset team, after fracturing his head in two places fainting in the bathroom.
There is no obvious replacement for Leach lurking in county cricket. The teenage leg-spinning sensation Ahmed is the last spinner other than Leach to play a Test for England. He took seven for 137 on his Test debut against Pakistan at Karachi in December, but is still learning his craft at Grace Road. Matt Parkinson’s stock has fallen since last year when the leg-spinner made his Test debut as a concussion substitute for Leach and has played just one Championship game for Lancashire this year, though additionally he turned out for Durham as a loan signing.
The Surrey off-spinner Jacks, who also made his Test debut in Pakistan, taking six wickets, has played two Tests and offers flair with the bat while the Hampshire all-rounder Dawson is unlikely to be overawed, though the last of his three Tests was in 2017. Rashid hasn’t played red-ball cricket for four years but has 60 Test wickets under his belt. And then there is Moeen, who has officially retired from Test cricket, turning down an autumn approach from McCullum with the words “sorry, I’m done”. But if he could be tickled into throwing his hat in the Test arena one last time, he would provide experience, control and just the sort of je ne sais quoi that appeals to Stokes and McCullum. The England and Wales Cricket Board said: “England will announce a replacement for the series in due course.”
Leach’s stress fractures follows a succession of injuries to the fast-bowling pack that Stokes hoped to have at his disposal during the series. Stokes himself has a chronic knee injury, Olly Stone has been ruled out until at least the second Test with a dodgy hamstring, Jamie Overton recovering from a stress fractureof the back, Jofra Archer ruled out for the series with a recurrence of his elbow problem while Mark Wood is unlikely to play more than three Tests due to long-standing fitness issues.
