The announcement of Mark Wood’s international retirement makes this a sad day for English cricket. With it goes one of the most watchable and quickest fast bowlers ever seen.
It should not come as much of a surprise given his history of serious injuries and the fact he is now 36. But the hope – and dream – that he could perhaps summon up his body for one last Ashes series next summer and walk off into the sunset having put the wind up the Australians one last time was always there.
I had an inkling this was coming after a chance encounter with Wood in the Headingley lifts during the first Test against Pakistan last month. Inquiring how his return from the latest knee injury was coming along, he indicated that the end of the road was close.
As ever, he was polite, charming and generous, especially when calling me back into the lift when I mistakenly walked out a floor early having told him everybody was rooting for him to come back.
Wood was at Headingley working for Sky Sports and BBC’s Test Match Special. It’s a job he has started extremely well, with this son of the north east’s wit and wisdom earning him, in some corners, the title of the natural heir to David “Bumble” Lloyd in the commentary box.
But I’ll always remember the thrill in grounds when Wood got up a head of steam and his speeds up past 95 miles per hour.
The Trent Bridge Test against the West Indies in 2024 was one of those occasions, when he hit 97.1mph during an over where his average speed was 94.5mph – the fastest over ever recorded by an England bowler.
After every delivery, the speeds were flashed up on the big screen and greeted with huge roars. It felt like blood sport. Afterwards, Ben Stokes, then captain, backed Wood to break the 100mph barrier.
Sadly, that never came but Wood’s high-velocity impact on games will be what he is always remembered for.
He walks away from international cricket an Ashes winner having been part of the team that beat Australia 3-2 on home soil in the summer of 2015 – his first in international cricket. It says everything about his career – for which most players would snatch your hand off – that it was perhaps the least impactful Ashes series he had, taking 10 wickets at 39.10.
It’s likely the 2023 series against the Australians, when he was introduced for the third Test at Headingley having missed the first two with more fitness issues, will be the one most people will readily recall. In three Tests, he took 14 wickets at 20.21. The way he rattled the Aussies in that first innings at Leeds, when he took five for 34 and hit 96.5mph, changed the series.
England were 2-0 down and had to win in Leeds. Wood did his utmost with the ball – and the bat when he struck 24 from just eight deliveries – to help his team cut the deficit to 2-1.
But for the Manchester rain in the fourth Test, Stokes’ men would have become the first team to come back to win an Ashes from that position since Australia in 1936-37.
Those occasions when Wood stress-tested the speedometer were a thing of beauty. He did it consistently during the 2021-22 Ashes in Australia, when despite England’s dismal 4-0 series defeat he took 17 wickets at 26.64. It was in Australia’s second innings during the final Test at Hobart when he returned his career-best Test figures of six for 37. It gave England a target of 271 and a sniff of a consolation win. They folded to 124 all out. Wood deserved better.
His five for 46 against South Africa at the Wanderers in 2020 was another electric performance, as was the St Lucia Test in 2019, when he took five for 41 in West Indies’ first innings to set up a crushing win.
That series in the Caribbean led onto the 2019 World Cup in England, when Wood’s 18 wickets, bowling in tandem with Jofra Archer, were crucial in helping Eoin Morgan’s team win the tournament.
His statistics of 119 Test wickets at 30.79 and 80 at 40.82 in ODIs don’t do justice to his talent.
His multiple career-threatening injuries mean he is a player whose talent was never truly fulfilled. He only played 38 Tests in a decade.
Yet as an Ashes and two-time World Cup winner – he also won the T20 version in Australia in 2022 – he can look back with pride on his achievements in an England shirt.
More important than any statistics or medals, though, is the fact that when he was “on”, he was perhaps the most watchable and thrilling fast bowler of his, or any other, generation.
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It says it all that when I interviewed Stephen Roper, Harold Larwood’s grandson, in Australia last winter he said how Wood was his favourite England bowler to watch and was someone who reminded him of his grandfather.
Short, skiddy and electrifyingly quick, he had a point. It’s a compliment Wood would no doubt be delighted with. To compare him with such a great name would not be wrong either.