Jack Leach’s Replacement in Ashes 2023: Ahead of the 73rd Ashes series, England’s lead spinner Jack Leach has been ruled out of the Ashes series with a lower back (lumbar) stress fracture.
The Ashes 2023 is scheduled to play between June 16 to July 31 in five different venues across England. The five venues will be Edgbaston, Lord’s, Headingley, Old Trafford and The Oval. We have explained the Men’s Ashes 2023 Venues with Stats for the fans to have an overview of the runs scored in different venues.
Jack Leach’s Replacement in Ashes 2023
The first match of the Ashes 2023 will be played on June 16 at Edgbaston, Birmingham. SonyLIV will live stream the Ashes 2023 season in India while Sky Sports will live stream the game in the UK. CHECK: Men’s Ashes 2023 Live Streaming For All Locations
Leach’s absence is a blow to England’s strategy, with the left-arm spinner having been a key part of the bowling attack under Ben Stokes’ captaincy. Since Stokes took charge ahead of the 2022 English Summer, no player has bowled more for England in Test cricket than Leach.
In fact, the spinner has sent down close to 200 overs more than anyone else in an English shirt in that time.
Leach’s absence will leave England with a selection dilemma, with no obvious spin replacement available.
England has picked seven seamers in their squad for the first two Tests; fielding an all-pace attack means they can go to Edgbaston without leaving out any of Stuart Broad, James Anderson, Mark Wood and Ollie Robinson.
Sam Curran, who offers a different angle to England’s current options, is another who could come into the selectors’ thinking as England looks for further points of difference without their first-choice spinner.
18-year-old Rehan Ahmed, who had starred earlier in the year in the ICC Men’s U19 Cricket World Cup in the Caribbean is perhaps the most interesting replacement for Leach.
Even at Karachi, Ahmed bowled 20 overs fewer than Leach across the Test. The Leicestershire all-rounder has six wickets from six County Championship appearances so far this season.
Dan Lawrence who is already in England’s Ashes squad, bowls decent off-spin and has three Test wickets to his name is another option for Jack Leach’s replacement in Ashes 2023.
On the other hand, Daniel Lawrence is a middle-order batsman who scored 551 runs in 11 Tests with a strike rate of 53.86.
Liam Livingstone also played as a spin-bowling all-rounder on the tour of Pakistan while Liam Dawson is probably the closest England has to a like-for-like replacement for Leach as a bowler.
Liam Dawson is a bowling allrounder who made his Test debut in December 2016 while played his last match on July 2017. Dawson played 3 Tests so far and scored 84 runs and bagged 7 wickets.
Moeen Ali stands as another like-to-like replacement under the bowling allrounder category. Moeen is one of England’s finest-ever spin-bowling all-rounders. The only barrier here is that Moeen is currently retired from Test cricket. He flirted with reversing his retirement last summer but ultimately decided against it.
Dom Bess is another who has played for England relatively recently but he is averaging nearly 40 with the ball for Yorkshire since joining them in 2021. Dom Bess played 14 Tests and bagged 36 wickets as a bowler.
Jack Carson and Liam Patterson-White are young spinners who were picked on the recent England Lions tour of Sri Lanka, but neither are likely to earn senior call-ups right now.
Mason Crane and Amar Virditoured India as reserve squad players in early 2021 but neither are close to being regulars for their counties at this point in time.
England Ashes Squad
Ben Stokes (c), Ollie Pope, Jonny Bairstow (wk), Joe Root, James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Harry Brook, Ben Duckett, Zak Crawley, Matthew Potts, Ollie Robinson, Dan Lawrence, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood, Josh Tongue.
