Oh dear. That is very bad news for a Sunday afternoon. The luckless Jack Leach has been ruled out of all the Ashes Test matches with a stress fracture to the back. My favourite part of the new regime has been the unlikely affection that has grown between Ben Stokes and Jack Leach. Two very different characters whose friendship, forged in partnership at Leeds in 2019, shows that cricket takes all sorts.
It is often said – indeed every commentator during the Ireland game said it – that Jack Leach has flourished under Ben Stokes’s captaincy. In fact, he hasn’t really. Leach’s record – 79 wickets at 31.88 – is much better under Joe Root than under Stokes – 45 wickets at 38.22. The truth is that Stokes has shown great faith in Leach, which is a different point. That faith might well have been repaid during the Ashes. Now we won’t get to find out.
It leaves England with quite a conundrum because, with Stokes patently not ready to bowl the full set from the fourth seamer. Leach was inked in for a lot of work. There are lots of candidates to replace Leach and no great case to be made for any of them.
The bold selection
The selection that would be most in keeping with the attacking mentality of the new dispensation would be Rehan Ahmed. He took seven wickets on his Test debut in Pakistan and would be quite a prospect batting at number eight. That said, is it fair to expect him to bowl defensively for long spells against Smith and Labuschagne? Six wickets at 54 this season don’t suggest a player who should be plucked out of the second division into the Ashes.
The old stagers
It would be entirely surprising to see Brendon McCullum put in an emergency call to Moeen Ali. Moeen has hardly turned his arm over lately. Even in the Indian Premier League he didn’t do a lot of bowling and he was never really a top-class spin bowler anyway. Is he up to being the fourth bowler, holding down an end? Not really. His good mate Adil Rashid is the other bring back the old guys option. It’s not likely that Rashid’s shoulder will stand up to the rigours of a long Test series, though.
The part timers
Will Jacks and Liam Livingstone will be mentioned but none of them are really first-class spinners. They are all batsmen who bowl a bit. Jacks has 29 first class wickets at 47, Livingstone 43 at 36. Both of them are the kind of batsmen that Stokes and McCullum want but that’s not really the job that is being advertised. Though here’s a thought. Jacks can open the batting in place of Crawley and you get the bowling as a bonus. It would be a little harsh to describe Liam Dawson as a part-timer but hard too to imagine him troubling the best batsmen.
The discarded
Dom Bess looked for a while as if he might be England’s long term successor to Moeen Ali but he struggled to turn control into wickets and then lost the control. Matt Parkinson has the best record of any English spinner of any variety but he can’t even get a game for Lancashire at the moment and, besides, there is a general view that he bowls too slowly and when the herd take against you like that mere wickets are rarely enough to find a way back.
So, what to do? At Edgbaston, the immediate solution might be simple. Don’t pick a spinner at all. Just select four seamers from Broad, Anderson, Robinson, Woakes, Wood and Tongue. Beyond Birmingham, it’s anyone’s guess.
The only spinner you should all be worried about is Nathan Lyon.
Sympathy for Leach of course but not like losing Archer. Don't think the Ozzies were quaking in their boots about facing him. Like your idea of opening with Jacks instead of Creepy. At least we'd be starting with 11 and not 10.