Jack Leach has revealed he feared for his life after being struck down by sepsis on England’s winter tour of New Zealand.
The spinner, who has played ten Tests, did not feature in the series victory in South Africa after failing to recover fully from sepsis which he picked up in November.
“I didn’t know too much about it at the time, how serious it could be, but I remember feeling very, very ill,” said Leach.
“I remember thinking, ‘Don’t fall asleep because you might not wake up’. It was that serious in terms of how I was feeling. I was out of it, really. My blood pressure was dropping quickly, my heart-rate was 190 and my temperature was 40 degrees.
“That’s when they called an ambulance and got me to hospital. Once I got there, got the antibiotics in my arm and on to a drip, I started to feel better quite quickly but it still took a couple of nights in hospital and I was probably still recovering when I flew back from New Zealand. It took longer to get over than I thought.”
