Ashes 2019: Jack Leach’s box is now Ben Stokes’ lucky charm

Superstitions are pretty common in the game of cricket. In the ongoing Ashes, there are a few players like Steve Smith and Matthew Wade, who have their own sets of beliefs, which they reckon work in their favour. However, the weirdest of them all belongs to Englishman Ben Stokes, who produced the unreal knock out of the blues in the third Test at the Headingley in Leeds.

In the second innings, the left-hander came to bat out after Josh Hazlewood bounced out Joe Denly. The Three Lions still needed over 200 runs for victory with seven wickets in hand. It was learned that he scored the century, wearing Jack Leach’s box. In fact, the New Zealand-born has been using the same from the second Test itself at the Lord’s where he scored a game-saving ton as well.

If Stokes is happy, then I’m happy: Jack Leach

“He uses my box now. In the Lord’s game, he had to get ready quite quickly, there were a couple of wickets and he lost his box so he was panicking. He was like; ‘Leachy, can I borrow your box?” Leach was quoted as saying on BBC Somerset.

“He was not out at the end of the day and he was like; ‘this is going to sound weird, but I need to keep using your box. So obviously I was like; ‘yeah that’s fine’,” Leach added. After scoring 115 at the Home of Cricket, Stokes was like: “‘mate, I’m going to have to keep that box now. It’s a bit of a superstitious thing’,” Leach added.

Leach was Stokes’ partner when the Brits chased down the mammoth target in Leeds. “If Ben Stokes is happy, then I’m happy. It obviously worked again in this case,” he added. Leach scored only a single in that innings, but it was arguably the most important single Leach has taken thus far. It helped England draw level after which Stokes finished things off with a scorching cover drive.

Stokes ended up scoring 135 runs off 219 balls with 11 fours and eight sixes. After the match, Stokes asked Specsavers to give Leach free glasses for life to which the company obliged. It was also England’s highest successful run-chase in their history of Test cricket.

Watch: CricTracker’s World Cup 2019 Cinematic Awards