There was a moment during a cruel summer of two elbow operations and no cricket that Mark Wood flirted with the idea of Test retirement; a nagging sense that the time may have come to park the red ball and specialise in the white-ball formats.
For a fast bowler approaching his 33rd birthday next month, one whose body has proved so rebellious in the pursuit of express pace over the years, such thoughts were understandable. After all, at a time when there is good money to be made bowling four overs a match, why continue to slog through five days of toil?
