‘I’m probably in the best place to deal with pressure’, says Jack Leach

Although England have recently gone through a torrid time in red-ball cricket, the veteran off-spinner Jack Leach’s performance has been one of the rare shining lights for the three-lions. Despite getting hammered in the Ashes down under, the left-arm orthodox bowler was highly praised for his impressive returns in the Caribbean tour as he picked 11 wickets at an unreal economy of 1.79.

On being asked about his feelings about getting the limelight, Leach admitted that it took him a little bit of time to gain such kind of fame and currently, he is in the best phase of his career to deal with the same as he has seen a fair number of crests and troughs in his career wave. 

“It’s definitely taken me time. I’m probably in the best place for that now. With experience and playing a little bit more and also having the ups and the downs”, Leach said.   

The Taunton-born stressed that everyone learns to deal with failure and criticism with experience, and he hasn’t been an exception. However, he also insisted that he loves working on his game and emphasises getting better with each passing day, which is probably the secret of his success. 

“I think you learn how to deal with failure and everyone saying you’re rubbish. I just have to keep working on what I can work on, which is getting better and shut that stuff out a little bit”, Leach said. 

Leach bowled a mammoth 189.3 overs in the West Indies series. When enquired about his thoughts on bowling long spells, the English spinner said, “I definitely want to bowl those long spells. It’s probably something I’ve been craving for a couple of years, that responsibility to bowl those longer spells and that came out”. 

Apart from his heroics with the ball, Leach also proved to be decent enough with the bat as his unbeaten knock of 41 runs propelled England to a respective total of 204 in their first innings of the third test. Talking about his aspirations of being a reliable bowling allrounder in the near future, the Somerset spinner said that although he aims at becoming a better bowler, he would also love to contribute with the bat. 

“I’m always trying to become a better bowler, but actually, there’s more things you can offer to a team. There’s so much cricket, and I think sometimes we just worry about our main skill”, the Taunton-born concluded.