Jack Leach‘s maiden Test fifty took plenty by surprise. It came as an opener – he faced the final over on Wednesday evening as a nightwatchman – on a difficult batting pitch, and his slightly ungainly style coupled with a first-class average a shade below 11 going into this game did not suggest a man with much natural talent.
But despite spending most of his career as a tailender, Leach has worked hard on his batting over the past three years in particular, revealing in interviews with BBC Somerset that he had been focusing on improvement since becoming an England contender.
Leach has one career hundred to his name in senior cricket, and unbeaten 123 off 178 balls against Nottinghamshire’s 2nd XI back in 2015. He has also scored a pair of first-class fifties, both against Lancashire at Old Trafford in 2017 and 2018.
On his Test debut in Christchurch in 2018, he scored 16 in a partnership of 48 with Jonny Bairstow to help his partner reach a hundred. In the second innings Joe Root declared with him unbeaten on 14.
“I said I was on for my first Test hundred, and he declared on me!” Leach said shortly afterwards. “We can save that for another day. I want [my average] higher than 30.
“Everyone’s been saying how good my batting was looking, and it’s an area I work really hard on. It was nice to form a partnership with Jonny and get him to his hundred, and just be annoying to New Zealand, so it’s an area I want to keep moving forward on, and it’s important that I keep contributing.
“It shows I haven’t really scored the runs I should have done for Somerset, but I’m still learning.”
In a previous interview at the start of the 2017, Leach revealed he had been working on his batting as a possible route into Somerset’s white-ball teams, after a difficult winter in which he had to remodel his bowling action.
“It is something I’ve been working on over the winter,” he said. “I did quite a bit with [then Somerset coach] Matt Maynard on my power-hitting, because I feel like that’s a big area to improve on if I want to get myself into the white-ball teams for one-day cricket and T20 cricket, and that went quite well over the winter.
“It is something I’m working on, and it’s a good feeling hitting it for six.”
This was only his second innings opening the batting in first-class cricket, and the first had also come in a Test – against Sri Lanka in Pallekele last winter. Leach’s achievement at Lord’s was all the more remarkable having not reached double-figures in his 19 previous innings, going back to that Pallekele Test.
Source: ESPN Crickinfo