Going down with sepsis late last year, England left-arm spinner Jack Leach remembers fearing for his life during the winter's tour to New Zealand. With his immunity compromised by Crohn's disease, the 28-year-old contracted gastroenteritis after playing the first Test against the Black Caps but ended up hospitalised with a secondary diagnosis of sepsis, which is a dangerous form of blood poisoning. 

Leach then missed the entire Test series in South Africa with illness and has now arrived for the tour of Sri Lanka having injured his left calf; life hasn't been easy since he peaked with his secondary skill, allowing Ben Stokes to take England home in that famous third Ashes Test at Headingley. 

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"I didn't know too much about it at the time, how serious it could be, but I remember feeling very, very ill," Leach told the PA news agency. "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 the 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."

In hindsight, Leach could've taken a break this winter rather than being quickly back to duty in South Africa, a series he was eventually ruled out of with a sickness bug. 

"I picked up a couple of things out there and my body couldn't cope with it," he said. "Other people got ill but I struggled to fight it off as well as a healthy person. The medication I'm on for Crohn's weakens my immune system, so it is just a bit more of a struggle."

"You can start to feel fine in general but playing high-level sport is a completely different thing and that's probably something I didn't think about enough."

"As sportsmen, we try to push through pain. You don't want to be weak mentally or physically but unfortunately, that was the situation: I was weak physically. With your health, you sometimes have to take a step back," Leach added. 

The Somerset lad was key to England's series whitewash against the Lankans last trip, bagging 18 wickets at 21.38. 

"I had a little setback with my calf a couple of weeks ago but I'm recovering well," Leach said.

"I'm still maybe a little bit off but we've got a bit of time, so it's about progressively getting back," he added. "I'll be bowling in training and see how we go. The main part of the tour is two Test matches and I'll be doing everything I can to be back for them."

The two-match series begins in Galle on March 19. 

(Inputs from PA news agency)