England’s Jack Leach says a first Test hundred was not meant to be as he fell for 92
Written by News on 26/07/2019
Jack Leach says England will “keep believing” that they can win the one-off Test against Ireland following his unlikely 92 as nightwatchman.
Leach put on 145 with Jason Roy for the second wicket on day two at Lord’s before a middle-order collapse meant they ended the day on 303-9, a lead of just 181.
While the game remains in the balance – if anything, it is weighed in Ireland’s favour – Leach’s innings and a half-century for Roy were positives for Joe Root’s side.
“It’s funny that in five games [for England], I’ve opened the batting twice!” Leach told Sky Sports.
“It was nice to be out there this morning, try to eat up some balls and take the shine off the ball and make it a bit easier for the batters coming in. That’s how I was looking at it and then you just see how far you can take it. I was just taking it a ball at a time. It seemed to go all right.
“I was telling myself not to think about [a hundred], which probably means I was thinking about it. It wasn’t to be but I tried my best and that was all I can do.
“It’s been a tough couple of days. We’ve definitely given ourselves a chance in the game, we’ve talked upstairs, and we feel we’ve definitely got a chance so we’re going to have to bowl well second innings but we’re in with a chance.”
After England were rolled out for 85 in the first innings and then crumbled from a position of strength second time around, Leach was asked whether some of the players are suffering from mental fatigue following the World Cup win.
“Potentially, but we’ve got to move on quickly because obviously the Ashes are around the corner and in sport, it quickly moves on,” he said.
“We’ll have to think about that at the end of the game and reflect upon things but, for now, we’re just thinking about tomorrow and we’re confident we’ve got a chance in this game.
“We talked about last summer against India at Edgbaston, the boys feel that the wicket was better there than it is here and they defended 180 – India were 30 short – so I think you always have to keep believing and we’ll be doing that tomorrow.”
Watch day three of the one-off Test between England and Ireland, at Lord’s, live on Sky Sports Cricket and Sky Sports Main Event from 10.30am on Friday.
(c) Sky News 2019: England’s Jack Leach says a first Test hundred was not meant to be as he fell for 92
