Mark Wood’s hot pace looms as an Ashes game changer at Lord’s in the same way Jofra Archer impacted the 2019 Ashes series – provided that England are comfortable to gamble on the fitness of a bowler who hasn’t played a red-ball game since December.
During the 2021-22 Ashes in Australia, 33-year-old Wood was arguably the most admirable performer in a sorry England team, his pace and direction never flagging as he seriously challenged both Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith.
Mark Wood dismisses Marnus Labuschagne during the 2021-22 Ashes series.Credit: Getty
He was similarly important in more recent Bazball times as part of the England side that swept Pakistan 3-0 away from home, but has played only three Tests in the past 18 months and hasn’t taken the field in any format since the end of his IPL stint in April.
Wood was missing from England’s line-up for much of 2022 due to elbow surgery, and there are plenty of questions surrounding how certain England’s selectors can be of his current ability to get through one Test, let alone three or four.
“They might even want me for one or two, if they need a pace element,” Wood said in March. “[Stokes] might want to mix it up to keep people fresh, but if people are playing well, I might not play any.”
Ben Stokes’ side holds it main training session at Lord’s on Monday, where Wood’s bowling will be assessed alongside that of James Anderson, Ollie Robinson, Stuart Broad and Chris Woakes, another seam bowling option for England who possesses a handsome record at the home of cricket.
‘[Stokes] might want to mix it up to keep people fresh, but if people are playing well, I might not play any.’
Mark Wood
Of that group, it was Anderson who struggled most for impact at Edgbaston, frankly stating that any more similar surfaces would mean the end of his contributions to the series.
Having lost Archer to an unforgiving cycle of injuries, Wood is the only England bowler of the sort of pace that can genuinely hurry the Australian top order or tail. His speed would have made a major difference to the closing stages of Pat Cummins’ last-hour heist of the Edgbaston Test last week.
That was certainly the experience of Labuschagne at Lord’s in 2019, when his Test career took off after Archer’s speed and use of the ground’s downward slope from east to west forced Smith to retire with delayed concussion after a sickening blow to the neck.
Subbed in on the final day of the game, Labuschagne was clocked on the helmet grill first ball by Archer, and jumped straight back up as if spring-loaded to fashion a match-saving half century that inked his spot in the Test top six.
“It was just one of those moments I said to myself that if I get hit I just have to get up,” Labuschagne said. “You’ve just got to get up and get in the contest. It’s kind of the nature of how I play anyway, to get in the contest and get in the battle. I think that actually helped me get into the game and got me going. I’ve got a lot to thank Jofra for.
“It gave me a lot of confidence. I sat next to Steve Waugh for the first part of that series and he was adamant that I was going to play. I said to him at one stage ‘Tugga, how am I playing? We’ve played one game, we’ve won, we’re not going to drop anyone for the next game unless it’s an opener and they’re not going to go with me, Harry [Marcus Harris] goes in.’
“Anyway Tugga was right, I got the opportunity here. It’s a bit surreal to be honest the way that all unfolded. Definitely finishing some of that series, I felt that if I could get through some of the patches of batting I had to get through in that series, I can do this.”
In Australia, Wood extracted genuine lift in the channel around off stump to defeat Labuschagne and Smith on multiple occasions, and the capacity for the ball to move laterally at Lord’s adds to the uncertainty caused by his degree of pace.
“Obviously Woody’s a great bowler and he offers a real point of difference and he’ll always come into consideration for selection, especially on wickets that need a little bit more pace as well,” England’s coach Brendon McCullum said.
“We were two wickets away from being 1-0 up in the series and if luck had gone our way, we might have been pretty content with that. But that’s the beauty of having a good squad, we’ve got guys to pick from and you’ve got to make decisions along the way.”
For the same reason, Australia will seriously consider calling in Mitchell Starc to add his extra speed and swing to the bowling line-up, possibly in place of Scott Boland after England attacked him with some success in Birmingham.
Alyssa Healy, the women’s Ashes captain for Australia, made the point about the Lord’s slope last week when asked for about her husband missing selection for the first Test: “All I’ll say is there’s a lovely slope at Lord’s for a left-armer...”
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