To reach for the career stats on Cricinfo is no way to go about it. This is a full-on YouTube job: boil the kettle, load up those spells at Headingley, St Lucia and the rest, and take in the whippy, absurd, mesmerising sight of perhaps the fastest English bowler there has ever been. That’s probably the best way to remember Mark Wood’s career.
Tuesday’s announcement of his international retirement was coming from the moment Wood hobbled out of the Ashes last December, the series opener his only appearance. That always felt like the last act, one he rushed back for after surgery on his left knee earlier that year, and the game moves on fast. England’s seam stocks look healthy across formats, with Jofra Archer there to ramp it up when required. It’s a sore point that Archer and Wood played just two Tests together: one without supporters during the 2020 Covid-bubble summer, the other Wood’s farewell at Perth.
The 36-year-old leaves with 119 Test wickets at 30.8 and 80 one-day international wickets at 40.8, figures that need dissecting. He sparkled when it mattered in 50-over cricket, taking 18 wickets in the 2019 World Cup triumph, and there is a clear before-and-after with the red ball. Having made his debut in 2015, it took nearly four years for it all to click together, only after Wood lengthened his run-up and was told by Trevor Bayliss that he wanted to see a bit more “mongrel” from his quick.
Wood responded by clocking 95mph on the way to his first Test five-wicket haul, against West Indies in February 2019 at the age of 29, setting up his own Benjamin Button tale. From that Test in St Lucia, his 13th, until his last, he averaged 27, all while hurling the ball with a lithe frame at obscene, unhealthy speeds.
The magic was in how he would spend time in hibernation, recovering from his latest blow, and return fully restored. When Wood rocked up in Leeds in the summer of 2023, with England 2-0 down in the Ashes, he hadn’t played a game since turning out in the Indian Premier League three months earlier. He hadn’t bowled in a home Test for two years. Out came a four-over spell in which he stayed above 90mph every ball, signing it off with the killer punch: bedtime for Usman Khawaja’s leg stump, the rhythm of the contest turned over. Wood crunched a few with his bat too, played the next two Tests and England levelled up the series.
It looks like a dreamy career. Wood took the Ashes-winning wicket in 2015 and thrived in Australia too, with 17 wickets in that dire Covid-era tour while everything else around him imploded. Beyond the 50-over World Cup, he was key when England won the 20-over equivalent four years ago, taking nine wickets in four group-stage games. Any up-and-comer with a braced front leg would gladly take all that. But we haven’t got to the pain yet. What Wood did for a decade is never going to agree with the human body.
“I’ve had numerous shoulder jabs, stress fracture in my back, tore my side about four times, so that’s two knee operations, two elbow operations, three on my ankle, and I reckon – without an exaggeration – maybe 60 to 80 jabs in my ankle,” Wood said on the Sky cricket podcast last year, running through his various afflictions while keeping his humour intact. “The amount of tape I go through, I’m like a mummy at times.”
There’s the moment it all goes wrong, the hospital walls, the monotony of rehabilitation, the return, then repeat, turning it into a serious mental battle, too. There are the games he’s missed, including the knockouts of the T20 World Cup he won, because of a hip injury. After the highs of Lord’s in 2019, he missed the Ashes that summer with knee and side problems. So the question to Wood is obvious if maybe quite silly: was the pain worth it?
For those just watching, it’s been pretty simple. Wood flying during his opening spell was always a thrill, even after the ball passed the outside edge, with that brief wait to see what number he would put on the speed gun. He terrified the guy at the other end but was clearly loved by his teammates and supporters, bowling with heart and skill, and a successful career in the media is already under way. He leaves with plenty of medals but those, again, are poor at reflecting what Wood did, having thundered through the crease like few others have. Maybe these words are pointless as well. It’s best to go back and watch.
