London: Jack Leach will undergo a knee surgery on Tuesday after the England off-spinner was ruled out of the ongoing Test series against India.
Leach, who was England’s most experienced slow bowler on the tour, played in the first Test match in Hyderabad. He injured his knee while fielding that caused severe swelling. Eventually, he missed the second Test and returned home for treatment. England won the first Test before losing the next two.
“I’m going to have an operation to get the rest of the swelling out because it’s not budging,” the 32-year-old Leach was quoted as saying by the BBC.
Leach’s knee surgery is his latest after he missed the 2023 Ashes at home due to a stress fracture in the back. He also suffers from Crohn’s disease. Earlier, during England’s tour of New Zealand in 2019, Leach had contracted sepsis.
“It was quite an unfortunate one. It was the second ball of the first innings in the field so that whole game I was playing with this knee problem. I obviously knocked it a few times throughout that game and it has just created a long period of recovery,” he said.
“I need to get the operation done and then hopefully I can get back to playing cricket. I’d love to have a run of playing cricket and getting into a bit of a rhythm again and hopefully that can happen again once I’ve got this sorted.” After the conclusion of the India tour, England’s next assignment will be the first home Test at Lord’s from July 10.
As far as the ongoing series is concerned, England’s ‘Babzball’ approach failed completely in the second and third Test matches by 106 runs and 434 runs respectively. The fourth Test match is currently being played in Ranchi.