Jack Leach didn't hurt his chances for England with five wickets against Warwickshire. Photo: Getty Images/Harry Trump
This is an important season in development for Jack Leach, England's leading spinner. Especially since captain Ben Stokes is unlikely to be able to play against Australia after taking two control wickets last winter.
Leach will have to hold the end for a long time if Stokes can't bowl. Leach's colleague, Nathan Lyon, doesn't have a big record in England — 45 Test wickets in 31 — but he has always been tidy, hitting under three runs per over and allowing Australia's fast bowlers to freshen up.
In his first match of the season, Leach took four wickets – all in Warwickshire's top five – for 119 runs. He lost too little at times in the cold wind, but overall he found some early-season rhythm in his 29 overs.
England's best player last winter was not James Anderson or Stuart Broad, let alone Stokes, but Leach. Five Tests and 25 wickets for a left hand spinner, giving him a Test record of 120 wickets of 34 each. In an ever-changing world, we have come to rely on Leach's poise.
Leach may not play baseball style, but by the time he went 15th in the Warwickshire innings, he had already contributed to Somerset wags his tail in the first innings, scoring 27 unbeaten runs with just 35 balls to take his team to 284.
However, the Leach found too soon that the field had turned into something slow and still. This served as a clear illustration of why the April bowling spin is a hopeless task for any student and burdensome even for an experienced test player.
The pitch was so slow that, if the ball was not a York , the bat had time to bounce back and play in the middle. If batsmen have time to adjust after being tricked, spin bowling is a different game than the two Ravis, Ashwin and Jadeja, in India.
Why should league matches be played on fields that weren't used earlier in the season or even pre-season? They offered some wear and tear, some natural variation, so that the batsman could be penalized for misjudging. Grass remains on the field for the seamer, so why not wear out for the spinner? Pristine Surface is an overrated fashion.
The Lich celebrates taking Dan Musley's wicket. Photo: Harry Trump/Getty. Images
Another local difficulty: Leach had to play from the end of the river Ton, regardless of the wind and any other factors. The grass in front of the new grandstand at the other end dried up and the border moved 10 yards, as if it wasn't too short for the lure anymore.
So Leach was left with the batsman — a mistake to use. He only took a wicket in his second over of the season when Will Rhodes fumbled during a mid-pull, but Alex Davis agreed with Sam Haine, who both earned centuries.
Davis, after his powerful 100, missed his first back kick attempt on Lich and got hit by the legs. In the same over, Dan Moseley played ingenuously and was pressed to the crease, some kind of turn at last. On the final morning, Hayne made way for James Rew.
The spinners weren't more prominent in other games in the first round of the championship. At Southampton, the number of wickets taken by spinners when Hampshire beat Nottinghamshire was equal to one wicket to Liam Dawson. However, before 1960, half the championship wickets were held by spinners.
Tough, always steadfast, that's «good old Jack,» as Taunton loyalists call him. Old spinners may be nervous, but for everyone in the era of white balls, stability is the most valuable quality.
From English left hand spinners over the past half century who have taken 100 test wickets. Phil Tufnell was a man in his own right as an aviator, not a spinner. Lich should be ranked higher than Ashley Giles, but not equal to Phil Edmonds or Monty Panesar, but his stats are pretty much the same.
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