\u201cMy dad would be Australia and I\u2019d be England,\u201d Mark Wood says with a wry smile when remembering his first Ashes Tests as a boy in his back garden in Ashington, Northumberland. \u201cI\u2019d try to copy Darren Gough, Andrew Caddick, Matthew Hoggard and, later, Jimmy Anderson, who I\u2019d go on and play with. My dad, who didn\u2019t do the actions so well, had to be Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie and Shane Warne. He was most proud of his Gillespie but his Warne wasn\u2019t great.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wood snorts at the idea that his dad, Derek, might have let him win most of those matches. \u201cNo, no, no. It was proper cricket. You had to give each other lbw and every time I hit my dad in the leg he\u2019d be going: \u2018No, that\u2019s going over\u2019 or \u2018That\u2019s down the leg side.\u2019 I was like: \u2018Dad, that was plumb.\u2019 I had to get my DRS right.\u201d<\/p>\n
He laughs before pointing out that his dad had been a decent batsman who played a high level of club cricket. \u201cBack in the day they played against some pretty good professionals. He still talks about facing Courtney Walsh and Ian Bishop. In the garden, we\u2019d bowl to each other from 16 yards away with these little Incrediballs. We did that for years until, when I was 14, I bounced my dad and hit him on the head. At that point he thought: \u2018This is a bit much \u2026\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
That mention of Wood\u2019s extreme pace is a timely reminder that we are less than three weeks from an intriguing Ashes series<\/a>. The first Test, in Perth, begins on 21 November and England plan to bombard Australia with a bowling attack full of bounce, hostility and raw speed.<\/p>\n Wood\u2019s respect and admiration for Australia is obvious. From those fiercely contested Ashes series with his father to playing club cricket on the Gold Coast to his dramatic involvement in 11 Tests against the real thing<\/a>, taking 41 wickets, Wood defines himself against the old enemy. He took the wicket that sealed England\u2019s series victory in 2015 and bagged 17 wickets in four Tests in 2021-22 where Wood\u2019s searing bowling, including a career-best six for 37<\/a>, was a rare highlight in a 4-0 drubbing. In 2023 he helped England win two of the last three Tests as he sparked a dramatic revival which resulted in the home series being drawn 2-2<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mark Wood hopes to take another bite out of the Australia batting lineup in the forthcoming Ashes. Photograph: Tom Jenkins\/The Guardian<\/p>\n But there is a poignant undertow because, turning 36 three days after the fifth Test is due to end on 8 January, Woods\u2019s fourth Ashes might be his last. His career has been blighted by injury \u2013 and his latest rehabilitation has been testing because he has not played since February.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve obviously had a poor and strange summer,\u201d he admits of his struggle to recover fully<\/a> from knee surgery in March. \u201cI could have played at the back end of the season, for Durham, but England took a more cautious approach.\u201d<\/p>\n Wood explains that \u201cChris Woakes was completely different. He wanted games under his belt to feel the rhythm whereas I can get up to speed very fast.\u201d<\/p>\n Rather than making any brash predictions of a certain England victory, Wood says: \u201cI can truly say there\u2019s a quiet confidence within the group. It\u2019s a different feel this time. Last time we had Covid and problems behind the scenes. Under this coach [Brendon McCullum] and this captain [Ben Stokes] there\u2019s a specific way of playing and we\u2019re going with more confidence and belief.\u201d<\/p>\n Wood is at the Oval with a small group of his England teammates. Joe Root, Jamie Smith, Brydon Carse and Wood are ambassadors for New Balance<\/a> and they\u2019re all in a relaxed mood. Wood has worked with the company for more than 10 years and his loyalty to is matched by his humour as England\u2019s resident prankster. But the seriousness of the coming weeks cannot be escaped, and thinking of Root, who captained England during the last Ashes in Australia<\/a>, Wood says: \u201cEverybody talks about Joe not having got a hundred in Australia but that doesn\u2019t take away how great a player he is. I believe in Joe 100% and he\u2019ll deliver for us like he has numerous times when we\u2019ve been under the pump. I just hope that, when he comes in, we\u2019re not 15 for two.\u201d<\/p>\n The ferocity and fragility of England\u2019s bowlers, however, might decide the series. \u201cIt\u2019s about having a collection of bowlers who can come in if anyone needs resting or there are injuries,\u201d Wood says of a squad crammed with quick bowlers including Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson, Josh Tongue, Matthew Potts and Carse. \u201cWe want a battery of fast bowlers and we\u2019ve tried to change from the norm of England, where there are lots of seamers, to Australia\u2019s vision of fast bowling. Look at Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood: they can all bowl at 90[mph] or in the high 80s and they\u2019ve been especially consistent and relentless. So we\u2019re going there with a bit of an Australia blueprint to see if we can replicate that and put their batters under pressure like they\u2019ve done with ours.\u201d<\/p>\n Mark Wood wheels away after taking the wicket of Travis Head in Australia\u2019s second innings of the fourth Ashes Test at Old Trafford in 2023. Photograph: Tom Jenkins\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Archer, England\u2019s other seriously rapid and intimidating quick, has also suffered for years with injuries but Wood says: \u201cHe\u2019s ready to go. All the bowlers are ready to go. Atkinson has had a fantastic year and Tongue seems to be getting better with every game he plays for England. I know Carse really well, from Durham, and he will have a huge impact in games, not just with bowling fast but with the bat as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Stokes overcame his own injury woes to return as a frontline bowler in the summer series against India. But he missed the final Test with a grade-three tear of a shoulder muscle. \u201cHe\u2019s in fantastic physical shape,\u201d Wood says of his captain. \u201cHe\u2019s worked really hard in the past year with the injuries and there\u2019s a real good atmosphere around Stokesy. Once we\u2019re in Australia he\u2019ll not want to take a backward step, because that\u2019s who he is as a character and a player.\u201d<\/p>\n The Ashes spotlight on England starts at the airport as Mark Wood arrives in Perth. Photograph: Paul Kane\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Stokes and McCullum also understand Wood. Sometimes, when throwing the ball to Wood, Stokes will offer a few simple words like: \u201cMake something happen, Woody.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think he would do that with everybody,\u201d Wood concedes. \u201cHe knows how to get the best out of me by just keeping it fun and with a simple gameplan.\u201d<\/p>\n Similarly, with England 2-0 down in the 2023 Ashes, McCullum sidled up to the returning Wood before the Headingley Test. \u201cBaz just said: \u2018Are you ready to bowl some rockets, boss?\u201d<\/p>\n Wood responded with five for 34<\/a> on the opening day. Every ball of his first four overs exceeded 90mph and, at his quickest, he hit 96.5mph. \u201cThat\u2019s Baz,\u201d Wood confirms. \u201cKeep it simple and enjoy it. Sometimes I\u2019ll say I\u2019m not pleased with how I bowled and he\u2019ll pick out a specific ball and say: \u2018How fast was that?\u2019 or \u2018Can you imagine what they\u2019re thinking next door when they saw that?\u2019 He\u2019ll always find a positive.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Subscribe to our cricket newsletter for our writers’ thoughts on the biggest stories and a review of the week\u2019s action<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n There\u2019s also a positive spin in Wood\u2019s reaction to the public barbs that England will experience in Australia. \u201cLast time I quite enjoyed it,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was good craic back and forth. Some lads, and I\u2019ll not name names, struggled with the hostility. I tried to have fun with it and my time on the Gold Coast helped because I could relate to that.\u201d<\/p>\n He played two seasons of club cricket in Australia for Palm Beach Currumbin. \u201cSounds tough, Palm Beach, doesn\u2019t it?\u201d Wood says. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t say I did amazingly well but it helped me grow up. I went out at 19 and back again when I was 21. I found lots of similarities in the lads that played there and my cricket friends at Ashington. I\u2019ve still got six or seven friends from there that made the big journey over to my wedding. They\u2019re fantastic people.\u201d<\/p>\n Wood, amusingly, remembers one of his Gold Coast mishaps. \u201cI was living with another English guy and we stayed with the captain\u2019s mother. She worked night shifts so we never really saw her. We\u2019d try and do chores for her but I nearly cut my toe off trying to cut the grass. The strimmer took the skin off the top of my toe and I couldn\u2019t play cricket that weekend. I made sure it was the other lad\u2019s chore after that.\u201d<\/p>\n There are sombre memories when Wood recalls his darkest period. In 2016 a string of injuries led to a panic attack at an airport. \u201cWhen I look back, all the signs were there that I was struggling with anxiety,\u201d he says. \u201cWould I be the same bowler? If I was in that position now I\u2019d handle it differently by working with people and knowing what it was. But it was very scary because I didn\u2019t know what was happening. I was going to see a surgeon in Holland for a second opinion on why my ankle kept breaking down. Little things added to [the panic attack]. I was going to an airport I\u2019d never been to before and driving at four in the morning. When I got to the airport I was shaking and in a really bad place. The physio got me there but it was a tough day.\u201d<\/p>\n Mark Wood in buoyant mood at The Oval after his recent injury woes. Photograph: Tom Jenkins\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Did Wood came close to giving up on cricket? \u201cYes, with that ankle, I definitely thought: \u2018Can I continue?\u201d<\/p>\n Wood has come though fraught times with his trademark humour and zany stunts. He has been known to startle his teammates by barking like a dog. His impression is so convincing that, until they see Wood laughing, some players have been convinced that a stray pooch has sneaked into the dressing room. Could the dog be brought out during the Ashes?<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t plan it but sometimes it comes out. I\u2019ve been on England tours where it\u2019s not been as strong as it could be but this group has a real togetherness. You have to gauge the feeling in the room. If the atmosphere is a bit sombre, or people are angry, I\u2019m not sure barking like a dog would go down particularly well.\u201d<\/p>\n