Nearly two years after his last Test on home soil, and having missed the first two games of this Ashes series, Mark Wood sought Ben Stokes to ask if the England captain had any requests or instructions before his belated introduction to the contest at Headingley last week. “He just asked: ‘Are you ready? Are you ready to bowl some thunderbolts?’ I said yes, and that was it,” Wood said.
His thunderbolts brought him seven wickets and several records; his bowling in the first-innings peaked at 96.5mph and hit an average speed not seen in this country since Brett Lee visited for the 2005 Ashes. Now his focus is on unleashing some more when the action moves to Old Trafford next week. Wood says he is “absolutely” determined to make sure “lightning strikes twice”, a process which starts immediately with him spending the next few days not doing much.
