Jack Leach to undergo operation after suffering knee injury during IND vs ENG Test series

England spinner Jack Leach has revealed that he must undergo an operation to heal from the knee injury that ruled out of the five-Test series in India. The left-arm spinner disclosed that knocking it a few times meant his recovery period has become longer.

The first Test of the series turned out to be the last for the Somerset spinner as he suffered a knee injury in the opening match in Hyderabad. The 32-year-old still sent down 36 overs in the match and took a couple of important wickets to fashion a 28-run win for England.

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, Leach highlighted that the swelling on his knee isn't coming down and that he has to undergo surgery.

"I'm going to have an operation to get the rest of the swelling out because it's not budging. It was 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."

Leach's injury has left the tourists with three rookie spinners in their squad in the form of Rehan Ahmed, Tom Hartley and Shoaib Bashir. Rehan, dropped for the ongoing Test in Ranchi, has flown home to attend to an urgent family matter.

"I'd love to have a run of playing cricket and getting into a bit of a rhythm" - Jack Leach

Leach added that he remains keen to get a run of continuous matches without injuries:

"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."

England won the first Test against India by 28 runs, but went on to lose the next two comprehensively. The 434-run loss in Rajkot proved to be one of their heaviest in Test cricket.