You must be happy for Jack Leach after everything the boy has been through – be it soap bubbles, Crohn’s disease, Covid or a concussion.
English pitches generally haven’t helped him, and he hasn’t bowled much. Then there’s all the talk about Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid, with Matt Parkinson in the background.
Now he gets a surface that has offered him something, and the pressure on him to deliver. And he has, spectacularly, only the second England spinner to take 10 wickets in a Test at Headingley since Derek Underwood 50 years ago.
For me, the key moment was the first hour of this Headingley test, when Ben Stokes Leach threw the ball. You don’t see many spinners here bowling this early in Test matches, but the confidence he must have instilled has proved crucial.
Not only that, but Stokes has created some beautiful fields for his spinner. How often do we see slow bowlers emerge, only to be greeted by sweepers on both sides, allowing the batsmen to hit easy bases early in their innings?
Stokes had none of that, and has been excellent about when to bring mid-off and mid-on, and when to drop back. Even the ricochet wicket, when Henry Nicholls was caught off Daryl Mitchell’s bat, happened only because Stokes had taken long-on to mid-on.
He’s told New Zealand’s batters if you manage to go over the top, good for you – but I’m not pushing the man back to give you an easy single. You’ll have to go over the top again.
I spoke to Graeme Swann last week and he said that when he sees Leach perform pitching for Somerset in Taunton, he sees a bowler who is confident in his action. Well, Stokes has given him confidence by simply showing confidence in him.
But Swann also said Leach needed to make some technical changes, including more action in his hip – and you can see Leach has taken up some of the suggestions.
He’s shortened his run to the point where he’s almost starting with the umpire, which gives him more momentum – he’s pulling his hip through more and standing a bit higher.
Doing that will give you more arm speed on the ball, which in turn gives you a little more drift – as we saw with his first wicket in the game, Will Young holding his leg.
We’ve also seen Kane Williamson, a good spin player, get stuck between lengths, unsure whether to come forward or stay behind. If you cheat on world-class batters before the ball lands, it must be a good sign.
We all knew that Leach could be a handful when the ball spins because he has that accuracy. He can drill it in and take wickets. It is in futile circumstances, as was the case in the second test at Trent Bridge, that he struggled.
And make no mistake, being a spin bowler in England can be a tough job. But Leach has worked hard with Jeetan Patel, the spin bowling coach, and – I can’t stress this enough – he has the support of his captain.
Shane Warne always said how much he enjoyed playing under captains who knew about spin bowling, such as Allan Border and Mark Taylor. Leach may now be saying the same thing about Stokes.
It’s also been noticed how over the course of this game Leach got more and more comfortable around the wicket and was knocked out from most of the field, not from the foot pegs.
At Trent Bridge, people said New Zealand’s off-spinner Michael Bracewell got more drop and drift than leaching. But in this game, Bracewell, so far, hasn’t reached a consistent height like Leach has.
With a Pakistan tour on the horizon, Stokes may have also decided to get more overs under Leach’s belt. If England win this match, he will have been dealt a double blow: success in the present, preparation for the future. Suddenly, Leach seems to play a part in both.