Jack Leach: The New England approach helped me get my Crohn’s disease under control

Jack Leach: The New England approach helped me get my Crohn’s disease under control – Getty Images/Hannah Peters

Jack Leach credits the England team’s relaxed environment, encouraged by Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes, for relieving his Crohn’s disease.

Reflecting on his health is relevant for Leach in Hamilton because the last time he was in town in 2019, staying at the same hotel, he ended up in hospital on an IV and suffering from sepsis after food poisoning was made worse by the illness immunosuppressive medications he was taking to control the symptoms of his Crohn’s disease.

He was so ill that on the way to the hospital he told himself not to fall asleep for fear he wouldn’t wake up.

Now that his Crohn’s is under control, it hasn’t flared up in months and attributes that to the atmosphere within this England squad and the trust Stokes has shown in him personally.

Stress can be a factor for Crohn’s, but Leach now worries less about having a bad day at bowling and doesn’t constantly fret about his place on the team.

“I used to worry about everything. And I think, well, I don’t know, but it [Crohn’s] can be stress related. So maybe being a little more relaxed will help that side of my health, too,” Leach said.

“That support and feeling of belonging is probably the most important thing for me. I know that eventually someone better will come along and take my place, and that’s perfectly fair enough. I’m just trying to enjoy it as much as possible and do as much as possible for the team.

“A lesson for me was taking 46 wickets at 38 last year. I never thought that an average of 38 would mean 46 wickets, I figured it would mean 20 wickets, 2.5 and an over and didn’t look like taking a wicket. I’m still watching this and I think I’d love to have a 31.32 average, but I know the only way I can get there is by bowling better, not safer. I have to be braver. That was a nice throwback to the end of the year. The message in the dressing room is ‘whatever they get, we get’. It’s probably asking more of people in a subtle way, it’s just really fun to be a part of.”

The tour kicks off on Wednesday with a two-day pink ball practice match ahead of next week’s floodlit Test at Mount Maunganui. McCullum has dropped plans for another two-day game at Hamilton over the weekend.

Ben Stokes (left) and Brendon McCullum – Jack Leach: New England’s approach helped get my Crohn’s disease under control – Getty Images/Matthew Lewis

The approach to preparation has changed radically to fit McCullum’s insistence that players have fun in the best time of their lives as English cricketers. Ahead of the Pakistan tour, they spent a week in the United Arab Emirates, Stokes arranged pit tickets for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and they arrived in Hamilton on Tuesday after four days in Queenstown.

A few of the backroom staff bungee jumped and one went skydiving, but the players mostly stayed on the fairways. To the environment’s credit, Leach, who “hates” golf, still feels part of the gang despite being in a very small minority who don’t swing a club.

Two days of cricket is not much preparation for an England team who have not won a test match in New Zealand for 15 years and have lost five of the five pink ball games they have played abroad.

But McCullum believes warm-ups are pointless exercises and the emphasis is on trusting players to know when they’re ready.

It is a far cry from previous regimes when over-planning and over-management stifled individualism. The greatest contrast is with England in 2008 when Peter Moores, then manager, ordered the players to have a full fitness session after a one-day game in Napier.

Graeme Swann described it in his autobiography as “the most humiliating and degrading session I’ve ever been a part of” where the New Zealand players all “sat and watched us from their balcony in the dressing room, beers in hand and the… Heads laughed from the body”.

One such player was McCullum, and it is inconceivable that he would copy such an autocracy, even after the heaviest of defeats. Go ahead and start over, probably with a round of golf, that’s how he’ll react.

“We work much smarter as a team. A lot of people were gone in January, but I took advantage of January a lot and bowled a lot,” Leach said. “So I felt like I got that job done. I knew last week was going to be about the team and bringing the team together. We just trust each other a lot more. I feel secure on previous tours because I’ve worried more, I probably overdid it and then peaked too soon, and on the first test I’m trying to hold onto that. Though I think I have a better chance of climaxing at the right time.”

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