England’s struggles offer Mark Wood the opportunity to win back his Test spot, and nail it down

With the series against the West Indies lost, and just two more Tests to prepare for this summer’s Ashes, it is time for England to start taking stock of their options

Jonathan Liew
Antigua
Monday 04 February 2019 20:21 GMT
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Jonathan Liew on West Indies vs England second Test

The old joke goes that whenever England suffer a batting collapse, they react by replacing one of their bowlers. Mark Wood has heard that one too. It’s why, ahead of Saturday’s third Test at St Lucia, he’s not ruling out a late call-up. “It’s very harsh to leave a bowler out when it’s the batting that’s failed, but that always seems to be the case, doesn’t it?” he chuckles. “Maybe I have got a chance…”

The word from within the England camp is that Wood does indeed have a chance. With the series lost, and just two more Tests to prepare for this summer’s Ashes - the other a one-off game against Ireland - it’s time for England to start taking stock of their options. Depending on how he fares in practice this week, selecting Wood in St Lucia - probably instead of Sam Curran - would be a sensible choice on perhaps the pace-friendly pitch in the Caribbean. Moreover, it would give England a chance to assess the progress of a bowler who, four years into his international career, is finally ready to show his worth.

Wood’s call-up in 2015 owed as much to potential as it did to pedigree. The vision was of that rarest of treasures in English cricket: a grizzled, destructive express pace bowler who could sling it down, make batsmen jump and complement the more technical challenge of James Anderson and Stuart Broad.

The pace was real, but until now the destruction has been sporadic. Wood won the Ashes in his first season as an international cricketer, but ever since injuries and indifferent form have restricted him to 12 Tests and 30 wickets at an average of 42. He’s never taken more than three wickets in an innings, and although he became a valued member of the one-day international side, he’s still yet to play more than four Tests in a row. Still, he has remained in England’s plans throughout, even if, as Wood admits: “There's probably been times when I've been selected for what I could do rather than what I have done.”

Last winter proved a moment of reckoning. Dropped from the white-ball team in Sri Lanka, and with his career listing, coach Trevor Bayliss issued him with a challenge. Go to the United Arab Emirates with the England Lions and prove you’re still a cut above. “He wanted me to step up,” Wood says. The results were encouraging enough: a strong showing against Pakistan A in the first-class game, a string of wickets in the white-ball games and most importantly long spells at good pace without fitness issues. With Olly Stone pulling up injured for this tour, Wood was the natural replacement, returning to the senior side with a spring in his step. “With confidence, for a change,” he says. “I felt I was picked on merit.”

Mark Wood's Test career is yet to truly ignite

And so begins his next challenge: to win back his Test spot, and nail it down. The pace is still there - when he cranks it up, Wood is still the fastest of England’s bowlers by a distance - and a lengthened run-up has slightly eased the explosive pressure on his joints in delivery stride. Meanwhile, the West Indies - and in particular Shannon Gabriel and Alzarri Joseph, the quickest of their four-man pace attack - have shown in the first two Tests what can be achieved with pure pace on Caribbean wickets.

“I haven't got Shannon Gabriel's muscles, but I still think I can bowl as quick as him,” Wood jokes. “I feel like my pace is still exactly the same. Ask our batters, but it feels like it’s coming out all right.”

Now aged 29, and newly married since December, Wood knows it’s time for him to mature as an England cricketer. On the field, at least. The cheeky sense of humour is still very much in evidence, not least on his recent honeymoon in Paris, when he visited Napoleon’s tomb and couldn’t resist posing for photographs in his famous hat. “I was absolutely buzzing with that,” he says. “When I got the hat, I was right up for it.”

If Wood returned from his honeymoon suitably refreshed and in high spirits, then England’s performance on this tour brought him quickly back to earth. After losing by 381 runs in Barbados, it was the 10-wicket defeat in Antigua that really seems to have affected this side, having become so accustomed to following a heavy defeat with a strong reaction. “It was probably one of the quietest dressing rooms I’ve been involved in,” Wood reveals. “I don’t think anyone spoke to each other for an hour.”

How can England fix things? There is, naturally, a balance to be struck between analysing a defeat and moving on to the next challenge, and perhaps in the past England have erred more towards the latter than the former. This defeat, its manner and its suddenness, feels somehow different. “They say don’t dwell on it, but you have to look at it,” Wood says. “You can’t just cast it off.

“But you’ve got to remember, they’ve been doing really well. We’ve played a lot of good cricket in the last year. So it’s not about drastically changing things. It might be something we need to tweak here and there. But it’s not a massive overhaul.”

Wood's pace is clearly still there

Like, for example, addressing four straight batting collapses by shuffling the bowling pack. “Obviously the batters’ union and the bowlers’ union are slightly split at the minute,” Wood smiles. “It’s hard for the bowlers when you get low scores and you have to go back in the field.” But whatever schism there is doesn’t seem to be run too deep: since the start of this tour England have instituted two-way feedback sessions after net practice, where the bowlers and batsmen work together and point out the weaknesses in each other’s games.

England will certainly need to stay together. It’s a big year ahead, with the Ashes preceded by the World Cup, and if there’s a certain giddy excitement ahead of this seminal year for English cricket then, well, Wood isn’t showing it. All that matters, for now, is getting a red ball back in his hands and slipping the England whites back on. “I would never give up my hope of playing Test cricket, certainly not at the moment,” he says. “It's the pinnacle.”.

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