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.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
