Wood’s pace makes England dream again in the Test arena
In the third Test between the West Indies and England, Mark Wood recorded career best figures of 8.2-2-41-5, as he delivered a spell of thrilling fast bowling that included four wickets in his opening five overs. Though Joe Root’s side had already lost the series following defeats in Barbados and Antigua, Wood’s performance allowed them to claim a morale boosting consolation win in St Lucia.
What was particularly appealing for England fans was Wood’s raw pace. A fragile, injury-prone seamer, Wood has always been capable of bowling quick spells but this was by far his quickest. What’s more, it was among the quickest bowled by an Englishman in the modern era. His average speed of 143.03kph was the third fastest innings average by an England bowler since ball-tracking was made available.
With an explosive action, characterised by a short run-up and a fast arm, Wood’s never been the most controlled. Over the past four years, only Ben Stokes has pitched a lower proportion of deliveries on a good line and length among England’s Test bowlers.
It’s a feature of his bowling that has always marked Wood out as an alternative option
— in a cricketing culture that has always prized the kind of bowlers that hit the top of off and look to nip it around, he is a different beast to what England are used to. For four years, he has consistently been the fastest English bowler available to the selectors.
It’s fitting then that Wood’s real arrival into Test cricket — albeit four years after he made his debut against New Zealand — was with a spell of seriously quick bowling. In domestic cricket, he was known for his pace. A spell against Joe Root on T20 Finals Day where he dazzled the crowd with serious pace, averaging 144kph on a sluggish Edgbaston surface, was a light bulb moment for many.
While his white-ball abilities differ from his red-ball ones, that spell displayed Wood’s capability to genuinely dominate top class batsmen. The spell in St Lucia was the first time we really saw him come good on the international stage. It was a moment England had been awaiting for many, many years.
And that’s because England has had a strained relationship with pure pace bowling throughout the modern era. Edgbaston 2005 was a remarkable time for the game in many ways, but perhaps with the benefit of history the most notable would be the depth and quality of England’s pace bowling stocks.
Andrew Flintoff, Steve Harmison, Simon Jones, and to a lesser extent Mike Hoggard, were all skillful bowlers but who used pace as their primary weapon. Since then, bowlers have threatened to break into the side — Steven Finn’s early promise gave way through injury and fatigue — and England have suffered as a result.
Numerous overseas tours have been blighted by the lack of pacers with the ability bowl 90mph+ spells, perhaps most
notably during the 2017/18 Ashes series, when the quickest any England seamer managed to average across the match was Chris Woakes’ 138kph at Adelaide. At the moment, Wood’s improvement could just as easily be a flash in the plan as it could be a turning point. He has rarely been able to keep himself fit long enough to build any momentum in Tests. If he was ever going to perform, it was with a well rested body on helpful surfaces like those in West Indies this time. If he’s carefully managed and captained properly — allowing him to remain a pure strike bowler, not a stock bowler — England fans could be in for something special.