Jack Leach accepts having COVID-19-like symptoms in South Africa

Jack Leach accepts having COVID-19-like symptoms: The English spinner had nearly missed the whole winter season due to poor health.

England spinner Jack Leach missed most part of the winter season last year to give chances to a fourth pacer and Dom Bess in the Test XI. While Leach missed the second Test in New Zealand due to food poisoning, he missed four Tests in South Africa due to illness.

Leach, who was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease years ago, primarily suffers due to a weak immune system. However, the winter has instilled confidence in him regarding fighting things quite well.

“The [Crohn’s] medication I’m on puts me at a little bit of a higher risk. But what I came through over the winter, it suggests that I can fight things off quite well and that I’m probably not as high a risk as others on that medication.

“Also, the fact that my Crohn’s is under control is great for me. I’m lucky that’s the case. The fact I’m fit and reasonably healthy, apart from that, gives me a good chance,” Leach was quoted as saying by Sky Sports.

Jack Leach accepts having COVID-19-like symptoms

Sounding untroubled by the prospect of contacting COVID-19, Leach admits that he had similar symptoms in South Africa earlier this year.

“I’ve been doing everything I need to do, sticking by the rules. But I’m not too nervous about if I’ve got it [COVID-19]. I do kind of wonder whether I had it in South Africa. If you had the symptoms I had in South Africa now, you would think ‘this is definitely coronavirus’,” Leach said.

Having picked 34 wickets in 10 Tests at an average of 29.02 and a strike rate of 60.9, Leach believes that his best is yet to come at the highest level. Despite his decent bowling figures, Leach is best known for scoring 1* (17) in a 76-run match-winning partnership alongside vice-captain Ben Stokes (135*) during last year’s historic Ashes Test at Headingley.

I’m thinking about trying to bring my best to the England set-up; I feel like I haven’t done that yet,” Leach said.

“It takes a bit of working out mentally how you want to go about things. You come from county cricket where you feel like you massively belong – by performing over and over – but for England I feel like I haven’t done that yet.

About the author

Dixit Bhargav

Born and brought up in Pathankot, Dixit Bhargav is an engineering and sports management graduate who works as a Cricket Editor at The SportsRush. Having written more than 10,000 articles across more than five years at TSR, his first cricketing memory dates back to 2002 when former India captain Sourav Ganguly had waved his jersey at the historic Lord’s balcony. What followed for an 8-year-old was an instant adulation for both Ganguly and the sport. The optimist in him is waiting for the day when Punjab Kings will win their maiden Indian Premier League title. When not watching cricket, he is mostly found in a cinema hall watching a Punjabi movie.

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