The second Test between England and Pakistan was won by England in Multan, sealing a remarkable series victory on the subcontinent. Mark Wood, the second Test’s leading bowler, was one of the game’s top players with the ball, but the lightning-quick pacer admitted he was considering ending his Test career after a string of injuries earlier this year. In the second innings of the Multan Test, Mark Wood excelled, unsettling the Pakistani batters with his lightning-quick pace. As the visitors were losing the game, Wood’s 4/65 featured the crucial wickets of Saud Shakeel and Mohammad Nawaz.
Wood excelled in this year’s T20 World Cup in Australia, enjoying playing on the nation’s fast tracks. But after suffering an elbow injury in a Test against the Windies nine months earlier, he played in his first Test at Multan. The 32-year-old acknowledged he was considering giving up red-ball cricket at the moment when questioned about his plans for the future of Test cricket in the immediate wake of that elbow injury.
“Well, in fact, yes. I wondered if I’d go white-ball only. At some point my body will say that it was the way to go but I didn’t prepare for the white ball, I prepared for all cricket. I desperately wanted to experience all this, with Stokesy and Brendon, so I’m pleased I’ve stuck with it. And I’m pleased we won here. I’d have been gutted if we’d won, I’d come in, and we’d lost. They’d have been pointing fingers at me!” Wood said ahead of the third Test in Karachi.
After entering the Durham academy while they were teenagers, Mark Wood grew up playing cricket with his current Test captain Ben Stokes. The right-arm bowler made a comment regarding Stokes’ changes in recent months after assuming the captaincy in Tests. Since Stokes was named as the team’s captain, England has won eight of their last nine Test matches and is now playing an innovative style of cricket.
“Stokesy now is much more mature. He speaks so well – he’s always had a fantastic cricket brain. But the way he comes across, the way he conducts himself, and the messages that he gives, he’s just so much more rounded than when we were growing up. He was this alpha guy who would whack it, and never back down. He’s still got all that, but he’s got other sides to him now. He’ll put an arm around people, and express what he means really articulately,” Wood added.
