Mark Wood focuses on getting wickets ahead of third T20I in Rajkot

England have arrived on the Indian shores with express pace bowlers, and most of their bowling plans revolve around them

England are 0-2 behind in the five T20I series against India. However, pace spearhead Mark Wood believes that there’s nothing wrong with their main strategy, which is focused on taking wickets to restrict the powerful Indian batting lineup. 

That strategy almost worked as well in the second T20I, as India kept losing wickets on regular intervals throughout the game and only managed to finish the chase because of some mature and consistent batting from Tilak Varma.

“We’ll just be trying to take wickets. I don’t think (Brendon) McCullum wants us to worry about runs too much, he’s all about how can we impact the game that way,” Wood said ages of the third T20I in Rajkot. 

“We bowled well in the last game as a group. With the target they were chasing (167), we were always looking for that attacking option of taking wickets. Some might have gone for a few runs at times but I also felt what was going to win us the game was trying to bowl them out.”

Both the teams have gone with contrasting strategies in both the games. While India played with three spinners (Axar Patel, Ravi Bishnoi, and Varun Chakravarthy) in Chennai, England relied mainly on Adil Rashid and Liam Livingstone to do the spin duties. They relied mostly on their pacers only, and Brydon Carse proved that right by getting 3/29 in Chennai. 

“Speaking of pace against spin, I still think we’ve got one of the best spinners in the world in Adil Rashid, he’s a huge weapon for us and every time he plays, he looks like he’s going to get wickets,” Wood remarked. 

“I wouldn’t count him out of our attack, he’s a vital part of it. And we’ve got a lot of options: Livingstone, Bethell if he comes back. 

“As a pace bowling group, the other night maybe there were one or two overs we might have changed but in general, we kept coming at the India batters. One guy played exceptionally well (Tilak Varma), if the luck was slightly different: a top-edge that went for six over the wicketkeeper, if that goes straight up in the air, it’s a different story.”

Wood also felt great about his pace in the two games so far despite not being at his destructive best with the ball. However, he admitted that his accuracy hadn’t been exactly what he wished for.

“I felt a little bit hit and miss – I’ve done a couple of good things, it’s great that my pace has been up there and I feel it’s coming out my hand well but the accuracy at times hasn’t been quite where I wanted it.

“But when I haven’t played since August, it’s pretty much expected – I’ve played two games since then. Hopefully the more I play, the better I get leading into the 50-over stuff and the Champions Trophy. I’ll keep trying my best and try to improve in training. Hopefully, that narrows my focus even more.”