QUICK OFF THE MARK
England finally have a star bowler of fearsome pace as Wood enjoys five-wicket haul
ASHINGTON lad Mark Wood took up the baton passed on by Steve Harmison to put the frighteners on the Windies with hostile pace.
And it showed what England have been missing in India, Australia and here in the Caribbean as the home batsmen were routed for 154.
It has been a long time coming for Wood, who has battled injuries since playing his part in the 2015 Ashes win. But he has always been a bowler England hoped could provide the pace X-Factor.
Wood claimed best-ever Test figures of 5-41 thanks to a passage of play that had every
eye in the ground on the middle. Before the game, Wood spoke about wanting to follow in the footsteps of Harmison, who ripped through the Windies back in 2004 and when Shimron Hetmyer was caught at slip for his fourth scalp, here was another Durham dynamo doing just that.
And Wood said afterwards: “All the time I’ve had with injuries and self-doubt and today I felt like a new player.”
Harmison, now a talkSPORT pundit, said: “Having a quick bowler, especially away from home is so important.
“Everybody can get behind a real pace bowler and it changes the whole atmosphere. “I’m not going to criticise a batsman,
I’m not in their league and I don’t know what is going through their mind out there, but I thought Hetmyer was backing away and showing all three stumps.
“That is what England need, whenever we go abroad we need someone to take wickets out of nothing. They are a team again with a fast bowler.”
Just as Shannon Gabriel had done earlier in the day when he roughed up England’s remaining batsmen and started a collapse from 232-4 to 277 all out, Wood turned on the aftertrained burners. It took him just five balls to claim his first wicket of the series, but the previous four had given a good indication of how his day would play out.
Shai Hope looked rattled as the ball fizzed past him again and again. The only ball he got some bat on was the fifth and he drove loosely to Rory Burns in the gully.
The next ball was too quick for Roston Chase as he fended another catch to Burns. Moeen Ali had already taken the first two wickets in two balls and he finished with 4-36 thanks to a smart Jonny Bairstow stumping and a stunning one-handed catch by Stuart Broad at mid-off. But this innings was all about one man who has had his fair share of disappointments, but who was asked to come back on by skipper Joe Root with one wicket to go and by uprooting Gabriel’s middle stump he claimed his first Test five-for.
In keeping with the chaotic selection policy for this tour, Wood was not even supposed to be out here with Olly Stone picked ahead of him.
But as Wood knows only too well, someone’s injury hell is another person’s good fortune and it is a rare role reversal for a man who has suffered with a troublesome left ankle.
Harmison added: “It’s brought a big smile to my face. I’ve seen him grow up and seen how hard he works to get himself fit again and again.
“I was talking to Mark before he got selected. We had been coaching the kids at Ashington leisure centre when we heard that Olly Stone was coming home. I said, ‘It can only be you’.
“He knew he had to perform and bowl fast. There will be so many people pleased for him, not least me.”