Jack Leach, an England spinner, announced on Saturday that he would have surgery following a knee injury that kept him out of the current test series in India.
During England’s first test triumph in Hyderabad, Leach injured his knee twice while fielding, and the 32-year-old was unable to play in the final two games as India rallied to take a 2-1 series lead.
Leach told BBC Radio 5 Live, “I’m going to have an operation to get the rest of the swelling out because it’s not budging.”
“That was a really bad one. I was playing the entire game with this knee issue because it was the second ball of the first inning in the field.”
It’s clear that I knocked it a couple times during the game, and it merely required a lengthy healing period. After the procedure is over, I hope to resume playing cricket.”
His county team, Somerset, starts their new season in April, but England don’t play another test series until the home summer when they host the West Indies in July, shortly after the Twenty20 World Cup.
“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,” Leach said.
Shoaib Bashir, who has so far amassed figures of 4-84 in the first innings of the fourth test, has stepped up for the tourists in Leach’s absence. He tore through the top order to limit India to 219-7, trailing England by 134 runs.
