England Ashes menace’s mocking dressing room antics

The bizarre dressing room antics of England’s firebrand is raising eyebrows, suggesting he is not who the world thinks he is.

Ashes destroyer Mark Wood was on all fours barking like a dog minutes before the must-win Ashes Test at Headingley.

The fast-bowler ruffled Australia’s feathers with one of the quickest spells seen in Test cricket during England’s victory in the Third Test, The Sun reports.

And the tail-ender — who also scored some critical runs for the home side — will be looking to hound the tourists for the rest of the series having surely secured his spot in the team for the final two Tests of the enthralling series with figures of 5/34 in Australia’s first innings.

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Bizarrely, the menacing bowler fans saw out in the middle during the Third Test was nothing like the man the English team saw in the dressing rooms in Leeds.

Fellow England bowler Ollie Robinson revealed some of Woods’ peculiar dressing room antics in a column for Wisden.

“Woody’s just got this mad, unique energy. There’s no-one else like him.

Chris Woakes and Mark Wood hit the winning runs. Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images.

“You think he’s drunk half the time yet he doesn’t touch a drop.

“Bear in mind this is a bloke who, ten minutes before we went out, literally at 10.50am, was on all fours barking in the changing-room, going, ‘There’s a dog in the dressing-room, there’s a dog in here, lads.’”

Robinson has never seen deliveries as fast as Wood’s thunderbolts in the Third Ashes Test.

Australia’s batsmen pretended they were not bothered but Robinson was not fooled.

He said: “I’ve never seen a spell like Woody’s on that first morning. I was at mid-off and, after the first few balls, I thought, ‘Jeez, that looks pretty quick.’

“Someone ran past me from slip and said they were standing past my bowling mark, which is 22-and-a-half metres back!

“After the first over, I went to fine leg and I was standing no more than 15 yards behind Jonny Bairstow, thinking, ‘This is the fastest thing I’ve ever seen.’ It was crazy.

“It was just amazing to watch and be a part of. Though not so amazing for the batters, I’d imagine.”

Robinson added: “Against pace like that, you pick up little quirks from batters that you don’t normally get.

“There was one ball that Marnus (Labuschagne) played and he had a sort of wry, awkward smile on his face. He was trying to give off the persona that everything’s fine, when it’s really not because someone’s bowling 95mph! You knew it was too quick for him after that.

England captain Ben Stokes speaks with man of the match Mark Wood. Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images.

“And even Uzzie (Usman Khawaja), who obviously plays pace really well and has been in such good form, struggled with the pace at times. He went from having this quiet persona at the crease to suddenly smiling and joking, trying to give off the feel-good vibes that he was fine.

“Every batter during that spell was doing the same thing. It was awkwardly fast and awkwardly uncomfortable and as a batter you’re trying to convey that you’re fine when you’re really not.

“Us bowlers were saying that, if we’d been batting out there, we might just have kicked our poles over!”

Former England greats believe the Ashes is well and truly alive and the series has the makings of an all-time classic like in 2005.

“They’re one-third of the way there — and they’ve got a template to win the last two Tests too,” Michael Vaughan wrote in the UK Telegraph.

“It is so difficult to win an Ashes series away from home and Australia were tantalisingly close. To pick themselves up from this psychological blow will be a huge challenge for Pat Cummins and his side.

“Mark Wood was a revelation at Headingley. He had the Aussies rattled — not just the tail, who he blew away, but also the top order.”

Former England captain Nasser Hussain said in the Daily Mail: “The 2-1 scoreline is a pretty accurate reflection of how the series has gone. England have relinquished some massive opportunities and today Australia will be feeling the boot is on the other foot.

“They will leave Leeds asking: how did we lose? Just as England have done in the previous two matches. Equally, 3-0 would not have been a fair representation of events.

“Yes, Australia have lost three important tosses and had the worse of conditions, but it has been much tighter than that and this result sets it up beautifully going to Old Trafford.”

— This story originally appeared on thesun.co.uk and has been republished with permission