England spinner Jack Leach will undergo surgery on his left knee, which he injured during the first Test against India last month.

Leach had to return home after injuring his left knee while fielding during the first day of the Hyderabad Test and was subsequently ruled out of the series. The left-arm spinner, who was playing his first game in eight months after missing the 2023 Ashes due to a back injury, confirmed he needed surgery while talking to BBC Radio 5 Live.

“I’m going to have an operation to get the rest of the swelling out because it’s not budging,” he said. “It was quite an unfortunate one. It was the second ball of the first innings in the field so that whole game I was playing with this knee problem.

“I obviously knocked it a few times throughout that game, and it has just created a long period of recovery. I need to get the operation done and then hopefully I can get back to playing cricket. 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.”

Despite the injury, Leach went on to bowl 36 overs in the game with a heavy strapping and picked up the crucial wicket of Shreyas Iyer in the second innings as England completed a memorable come-from-behind victory.

England are also without young spinner Rehan Ahmed for the last two Tests against India after he flew home ahead of the Ranchi game due to personal reasons. He will not be flying back to India. England have not yet named replacements for the two bowlers.

In their absence, Shoaib Bashir, who made his debut in Visakhapatnam, stood up today (February 24), grabbing 4-84 on day two to leave India reeling at 219-7. Tom Hartley, another newcomer, picked up 2-47 after England posted 353 on the board.

England’s next Test series will be against the West Indies at home, with the three-match tour beginning on July 18.

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