Before the Ashes, Wood had gone 16 months without playing a Test, first because of an elbow injury, followed by the knee problem.<\/p>\n
The Durham man tried to play at the start of the English summer, yet his only cricket in the run-up to the Ashes was a warm-up game against England Lions. He was limited to eight overs at Lilac Hill because of tightness in his hamstring.<\/p>\n
“I look back at it from a personal point of view that I was nowhere near ready,” said Wood.<\/p>\n
“Coming to Perth my knee probably wasn’t right, and then my hamstring \u2013 I’ve never had a hamstring problem in my whole career. I think the hamstring was over-compensating for my knee, protecting my knee, and that’s why it got tight.<\/p>\n
“I remember bowling in the nets in Perth, almost convincing myself I’m ready to go, then at the back of my mind thinking ‘I’m nowhere near’.”<\/p>\n
England’s tour was dogged by poor performances on the field and issues off it, all under huge scrutiny from the local media.<\/p>\n
Headlines about the visitors began on their arrival at Perth airport and, during their stay in Western Australia, they were followed to golf courses and even on a trip to an aquarium.<\/p>\n
Later on the tour, in Brisbane, Wood was one of three players photographed riding an e-scooter without a helmet, contravening Queensland law.<\/p>\n
When the England squad left Brisbane, a member of their security team became involved in altercation with a TV cameraman.<\/p>\n
“People can say what they want about when Australia come here, but if they get followed like we got followed in Australia, I would be amazed,” said Wood.<\/p>\n
“Me and Ben Stokes went for a walk, and this guy fell out of the bush with his camera. We had reporters running after us, asking us questions.<\/p>\n
“A lot of the times we were doing interviews, saying outlandish things that probably didn’t help the cause. It just felt like a huge pressure cooker, more so than normal.<\/p>\n
“The scrutiny and pressure the team was under, even in the dressing room \u2013 from a team that is usually quite relaxed, there was more heated discussions than I remembered in that team.<\/p>\n
“This shouldn’t be an excuse. The main problem is we didn’t play well.”<\/p>\n
England were also criticised for a mid-tour holiday in the resort of Noosa, when the drinking of some players was questioned.<\/p>\n
In one instance, some of the squad were pictured drinking openly at a table outside a roadside bar.<\/p>\n
Wood, who is teetotal, said: “I wouldn’t have done that. If I was a drinker, I wouldn’t have done that, but that’s not to say what I think is right or wrong, that I’m righteous, or I would have done the right thing.<\/p>\n
“I wouldn’t have done that because of what people might perceive me to be.”<\/p>\n
Wood was in Noosa, then left the tour straight after.<\/p>\n
“Their choice is their own,” he said. “They’re grown men. If it is to their detriment and they don’t play well, that’s a detriment to your career, so that’s up to you as an adult.<\/p>\n
“My choice might have been different, but that is my choice, and I’ve made loads of bad choices in my career.”<\/p>\n
Wood also discussed the attitude towards golf by a squad led by captain Ben Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum. Stokes retired from international cricket in June, with McCullum sacked as Test coach soon after.<\/p>\n
In the Stokes-McCullum era, England players often played golf in their downtime, but the frequency of their time on the course and their openness about the pastime led to criticism that they spent too much time golfing and not enough time training.<\/p>\n
Wood is not a golfer and said: “The perception of how it looks to people is worse than what it actually was.<\/p>\n
“Is it a bad thing? The lads get to spend loads of time together. They don’t just play golf, they’re talking about cricket. You get away from the mental pressures of the tour, or at home. I see both points.<\/p>\n
“The problem for me is how it’s perceived by the public. That’s the bit that looks wrong to me.<\/p>\n
“I liked to get away and see where we were staying. You’d often fly into a place, see a hotel, or fly out. I’d often grab Mark Saxby, the masseur, or Chris Woakes and we would go to a coffee shop, or find somewhere.”<\/p>\n
Asked if he felt other players were “obsessed” with golf, Wood replied: “I wouldn’t say they were obsessed, but the lads certainly did like their golf.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before the Ashes, Wood had gone 16 months without playing a Test, first because of an elbow injury,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":744201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-744200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/744201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}