MATCH STORIES
Follow UsAt Trent Bridge, after bowling 28 of the finest overs bowled by a tearaway quick in recent memory, Mark Wood exited Nottingham with just two wickets to his name.
There is seldom justice in sport and this was a great example. Wood bowled arguably the best he has on home soil, yet he only had two wickets to show for.
But in sports, particularly cricket, there are also days and games in which you actually end up getting rewarded for your efforts.
In the case of Wood, Day 3 of the Edgbaston Test on July 28 (Sunday) was the day where he finally got the rewards he so richly deserved.
He finished the West Indies’ second innings and in turn the series with figures of 5/40 — his sixth five-for in Tests and his second on home soil.
Yet, as is always the case with Wood, this was a spell that was NOT about the figures. It was all about the energy, vigour, speed, firepower and thrill he brought to the table. Luckily and deservedly, the combination of these aforementioned ingredients — for a change — resulted in a flurry of wickets.
When West Indies resumed the post-lunch session on 151/5, Wood had no wickets to his name in the second innings. That’s right: zero wickets, with his figures reading 8-1-31-0.
What followed over the course of the next hour was arguably the most exhilarating spell of sheer fast bowling seen on English soil in a very, very long time.
In an unbroken six-over spell where he delivered absolute thunderbolts, Wood registered figures of 6-0-19-5 to single-handedly blow the visitors away, taking all five wickets to fall in the session.
Each of the five wickets had Wood’s signature all over them.
The England seamers were starting to generate massive amounts of reverse swing with the 40-over-old Dukes ball, and this was when Wood began to torment the Windies batters with his rockets that swung into the right-hander.
After absolutely bullying Joshua Da Silva with late reverse swing for 10 balls, he trapped the right-hander LBW on the 11th ball he bowled to him in the session with one that came back in viciously and tailed back in late. It was so plumb that Da Silva started to walk even before the umpire raised his finger.
Alzarri Joseph was the next to depart. The Da Silva-Wood battle lasted 11 balls, but the tearaway quick needed only six deliveries to cut right through Joseph.
Sticking to his plan, Wood tailed the ball back into the right-hander at pace. Joseph went for a wild swing, hoping to fight fire with fire, but he saw his stumps get brutally knocked down.
They say when a fast bowler is on fire, the best place for a batter is the non-striker’s end. That way, Kavem Hodge was smart: across Wood’s first five overs in the second session, he faced just six balls.
But as he soon found out, when a bowler is in a rhythm like this, it’s also not ideal to be cooling down at the other end; you have to be sharp to combat the fire that’s coming your way.
Hodge, though, wasn’t, and he nicked one to the keeper on the first ball of Wood’s sixth over of the spell to gift the tearaway quick his third.
This brought in Jayden Seales, who endured a pretty brutal one-two en route to a three-ball duck.
After a wayward short ball down leg on ball number one, Seales was pinged on the head by a vicious bouncer on ball number two. He tried to play it cool, but he was stung pretty badly. Wood enjoyed it: he had a couple of ‘nice’ things to say to the batter on the way back to his run-up.
This vicious bouncer was followed up by a delightful, picture-perfect yorker that sent Seales’ stumps flying. These days, you rarely see stumps cartwheel but on this occasion, Seales’ off-stump went for a mini-walk.
In walked poor Shamar Joseph next, to face the music, and he started off excellently, collecting a boundary off his first ball by punching Wood off the back foot.
But Joseph’s joy was short-lived; he nicked one to second slip the very next ball. And so, just like that, Wood had five to his name IN THE SESSION, and West Indies’ innings was over.
This was truly one of those spells where you just had to be there.
Never change, Mark Wood!
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