Jack Leach’s Test summer began as ominously as his winter had. Six months after Australia had crashed 103 runs from 13 overs in Leach’s first bowl of a disastrous Ashes, Zak Crawley passed him his phone in the dressing room on the eve of the first Test back. On it was a Youtube compilation of their new coach, Brendon McCullum, chasing balls down to the boundary in his playing days, diving head-first across the ground and hauling the ball back in, stopping certain fours in the name of saving one run. England’s left-arm spinner, one of many vulnerable places in a side sieged with uncertainty, sat next to his equally jeopardised teammate watching it for a minute, awestruck. They took mental notes.
Twenty minutes into the first Test the following day, as fate would have it, Leach found himself chasing a ball destined for the rope. “I suddenly thought to myself…” He pauses as if to re-consider the options presented him, then says, “Oh god, I’m going to have to get my Baz McCullum out here.”
