Leach targets happy return in land of personal highs and lows

NEW ZEALAND has been both kind and cruel to Jack Leach. In 2018, it was where he made his England debut; in 2019, where he fell seriously ill.

- Cameron Ponsonby

"When I came back to this hotel, I was like, 'ah, bad memories coming here"," Leach said, speaking from the lobby of the same hotel where three years ago a routine case of food poisoning turned into sepsis. "Don't fall asleep," Leach, who suffers from Crohn's disease, has recalled previously of his time in hospital. "You might not wake up."

But, back again in 2023, he says he is having "too much fun" playing international cricket to mull over those times, as he returns to the country as England's undisputed No1 spinner.

"I feel very different as a person from then," the left-arm spinner (right) said. "And I think I've been influenced by the environment I'm in now."

The last 12 months have been a remarkable turnaround for a player who went from being in and out of the England side on any given occasion, to bowling 100 overs more than anyone else in Test cricket in 2022.