You make your own luck, or so they say, and Jack Leach’s took a lot of making. Since his debut in New Zealand in 2018 he has played 25 of England’s 55 Tests, thrust into the side and plucked out, injured and recovered. Once someone fractures his skull after fainting in his own kitchen, as Leach did in 2015, they probably learn to take the regular rough with the occasional smooth – and the kind of rough that Leach has been presented with has not often been the sort that spinners feast on.
Shortly after lunch on the second day at Headingley he left the pitch with the ball in his hand, after claiming his first Test five-fer in England, or indeed anywhere outside Sri Lanka. This was not an everyday achievement – he was the first spin bowler to take five in the first innings of a Test at Headingley since Jim Laker in 1958 – and it was the reward of uncommon effort.
