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?
And yet the lure of playing under Ben Stokes, one of his oldest friends, and the Test team’s catalytic new head coach, Brendon McCullum, proved too strong – something the England supporters in Multan could be grateful for, after Wood’s three-wicket burst derailed Pakistan’s spirited run chase to claim the historic series win.
“I wondered if I’d go white-ball only,” admitted Wood, when asked if he ever doubted days like this might return during the long, dark periods recovering from surgery.
“At some point my body will say that it’s the way to go but I didn’t prepare for white-ball [during my rehabilitation period], I prepared for all cricket. I desperately wanted to experience all this, with Stokesy and Brendon, so I’m pleased I’ve stuck with it.”
This nugget is just the latest example of the impact Stokes has made since his appointment last April. As was widely cited at the time, Ian Botham and Andrew Flintoff served as cautionary tales regarding the risk of over-burdening the team’s totemic all-rounder and yet a good few have been surprised since.
Asked if he was among them, having played with Stokes since their days in the Durham academy, Wood replied: “Yeah. It’s weird, the lad I grew up with, he was this alpha guy who would whack it and never back down. And he’s still got all that. He’s always had a fantastic cricket brain but he’s got other sides to him now.
“The way he conducts himself and the messages that he gives, he’s just so much more rounded than when we were growing up. He’ll put an arm round people and express what he means really articulately – I didn’t think he had some of the words in his locker. He’s been world-class, to be fair.”
Though now boasting a T20 World Cup winners’ medal to go with the 50-over equivalent from 2019, plus the joy of becoming a match-winner in Pakistan, it has not been an easy winter for Wood. For the first time he has experienced strong homesickness on tour – the guilt of being away from his son, Harry, back in Ashington.
Days like the fourth day in Multan, where he broke Pakistan’s dogged pursuit of 355 to win, offset some of this. It was a herculean six-over spell of sweat and toil in the dust and heat, his twin, pivotal removals of Mohammad Nawaz and Saud Shakeel through short balls and a leg trap rewarded with an almighty bear hug from Stokes.
And there should be huge satisfaction for England’s seamers as a collective: in the past they may have approached the lifeless surfaces with trepidation and yet, despite no specialist bowling coach on tour and clearly a lack of local knowledge given the Test team’s 17-year absence from Pakistan, they have thrived.
Wood said: “This will sound bad but, because Jimmy [Anderson] has played so much, he’s like a bowling coach on the field, the way he sees the game. He has so much experience and nous. Sometimes he looks like he’s cheating – that ball to bowl [Mohammad] Rizwan [on day three in Multan], I could never bowl that ball. And Ollie Robinson can nip them on glass. I don’t know how he nipped them on this wicket.”
By his own admission, Wood has found this latest comeback the toughest given the jump in workloads from playing Twenty20 cricket in Australia. He was physically broken at the end of the Multan Test, preferring to sit on the outfield to answer questions, and though an extra day off resulted, Saturday’s third Test in Karachi still comes around quickly.
For a player who was a solitary shining light during last winter’s Ashes, but has missed 10 of England’s 12 Tests since, there is an understandable urge to push through here. Another incentive comes in bowling fast in front of another Pakistani crowd, having been tipped to break the 100mph barrier by Shoaib Akhtar in the Guardian before the series.
Wood added: “I [also] heard Shoaib say that if I wanted to bowl 100mph I needed to pull trucks. He doesn’t know how weak I am! I can’t pull any trucks. But it’s great to replicate someone like that. The crowds have been amazing, they love fast bowling in Pakistan off the back of guys like Shoaib. It’s nice to get that reception.”
