The England National Cricket Team is currently hosting the Pakistan National Cricket Team for a three-match Test series. During the first Test of the series, English pacer Mark Wood has shared his views on his own performance and the side in the Ashes last year in Australia. He calls it a shameful display by the side.
England were completely outplayed in the Ashes in Australia last year. They lost the series 4-1, which saw some backlash and criticism for the cricketers. Mark Wood only played the first game and was ruled out due to the injury he was nursing ahead of the series. The Three Lions post that have not won a series; they drew against India and lost to New Zealand at home.
While speaking with BBC TMS, Mark Wood recalls that loss in the first game against their fiercest rivals was shameful, as he believes that they should have won the first game, and if they had won that game, it would have been a totally different scenario in the series. England lost nine wickets for 99 runs, and later Travis Head smashed a blistering 123 to chase down 205.
"I look back on it shamefully. We should have won that first game. The whole tour was different if we won in Perth. Australia were there for the taking. Then the game just seemed to be in fast-forward, which is why I feel shame, because the game was finished."
"We're finished": Mark Wood explains on first Test
In the same video, Mark Wood mentioned how they were bowling bouncers to Travis Head, which he easily picked up and smacked the English pacers all around the world; that is where the 36-year-old pacer believed that the match was gone.
"At one point, Gus Atkinson was bowling; we were just bowling bouncers at Head, and he was smacking them, and I remember looking at the score and thinking, 'this game is finished.'
"I stopped the play and went to Gus to say, 'What are we actually doing here, because this is the last resort? If you don't change it now, we're finished, and the game is literally gone'. Head was so good that day, and then the momentum was with them. I just look back and think 'what a shame'. It's a total missed opportunity," said Wood to BBC TMS during the ongoing England-Pakistan Test.
Apart from criticizing the team, Wood also believed that he was not fully fit to play the first Test match, as he was suffering elbow, knee, and hamstring issues. He stated that his knee was not right to play and also his hamstring was giving him some problems, as he was focusing more on the knee problem, which is why the hamstring got stiff.
He said, "I look back at it from a personal point of view that I was nowhere near ready."
"Coming to Perth, my knee probably wasn't right, and then my hamstring – 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. 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'," he said.
"We had reporters running after us": Mark Wood on English media following them
The English media in Australia created more trouble off the field for the cricketers, as Wood remembers that they were being followed everywhere, from golf courses, an aquarium, and an incident where the pacer was caught riding an e-scooter without a helmet in Brisbane.
"People can say what they want about when Australia comes here, but if they get followed as we got followed in Australia, I would be amazed. 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.
"A lot of the time 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. The scrutiny and pressure the team was under, even in the dressing room – from a team that is usually quite relaxed, there were more heated discussions than I remembered in that team. This shouldn't be an excuse. The main problem is we didn't play well."
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