On the eve of this first Test match of a mouthwatering summer, England captain Ben Stokes said he had stopped planning too far in advance. Having wished for a battery of eight fast bowlers to go into the Ashes, then watched half of them succumb, one by one, to varying degrees of injury, he did not see the point.
But on the opening day here at Lord’s, there was evidence to the contrary, England’s skittling of Ireland for 172 full of nods towards the Australian challenge to come.
There had been less than an hour’s play and only 11 overs bowled when Stokes first threw the ball to Jack Leach yesterday, the second-earliest a spinner had been introduced on day one of a Lord’s Test in almost 70 years.
The immediate takeaway concerned Stokes himself, the all-rounder, who stopped just shy of declaring himself fit to bowl when speaking on Wednesday, clearly not feeling up to doing so this week, or else not feeling the need to.
The decision, then, to turn to Leach may well have been borne of necessity, with just three other frontline options in the attack and debutant Josh Tongue having just been introduced first change at the other end.
At that stage, though, Matthew Potts and Stuart Broad had bowled only five overs in their respective new-ball spells, the latter already with three wickets to his name and Ireland’s top order struggling to cope in seam-friendly conditions.
Indeed, when the visitors were briefly 19 for four, before Paul Stirling earned a DRS reprieve, you wondered whether Leach would get a bowl at all. He had not in Ireland’s last innings here four years ago, when Broad and Chris Woakes shared all 10 wickets in just 15.4 overs of work.
But getting Leach among the action and, indeed, the wickets appeared a point of priority for Stokes, whose faith in and utilisation of the spinner has transformed his standing and self-confidence over the past 12 months, figures of three for 35 taking his tally to 44 wickets in 13 matches since the change in leadership.
That they have come at an average several clicks higher than under Joe Root can even be skewed as a positive, evidence of Stokes’s willingness to bowl Leach in conditions not particularly conducive to spin; likewise his use as an attacking, wicket-taking option, rather than a plug-in at one end.
There again, if Stokes’s role with the ball continues to be minimised, England may well need Leach to offer both, particularly as all suggestions so far are that the side will not be rebalanced in terms of selection to pick up the slack.
“It does change the dynamic a little bit,” Broad said yesterday, after taking his 20th Test five-for. “Your spells come around quicker, you’ve got to front up and bowl more overs in a day, but I based the first half of my career doing that with [Graeme] Swanny, Jimmy [Anderson], [Tim] Bresnan or Chris Tremlett, we had three seamers and a spinner and cracked on.”
With four left-handers in their likely top-seven, Australia will come hard at Leach, just as they did in the First Test at Brisbane during the last Ashes, when he was belted for 102 runs in just 13 overs. That he eventually came out on top in a duel with Stirling yesterday was pleasing on that front, the Irishman sweeping his first ball to the fence for four, but Leach gaining revenge when he was out top-edging a similar shot 30 runs later.
“Stokesy has intentionally exposed me to a lot of different situations,” Leach told the Telegraph last month. “What I have proved to myself is that if I am on top of that situation not seeing it as a surprise, knowing they will come at me, if I bowl well I have a great chance of making a breakthrough.”
It was with the 2019 Ireland Test that Leach began the year that would make him a much-loved tertiary in the England drama, from 92 as nightwatchman in that match to one not-out at Headingley, through to a shoes-off ovation at The Oval at the series’ end, then on to legions of bald-cap fancy dress tributes at the darts at Ally Pally by Christmas.
A cult-hero figure, then, to regain the Urn this summer, Stokes and England know something more serious will be required.
