England Ashes hero was ‘on all fours barking like a dog’ just ten minutes before must-win Headingley Test
MARK WOOD was on all fours barking like a dog minutes before the must-win Ashes Test at Headingley.
The Durham pace ace ruffed up Australia with his 96mph bowling during the crucial victory in leads, erm, Leeds.
And the tail-ender – who also scored some crucial runs – will be looking to hound the tourists for the rest of the series with his deliveries from right-arm rover.
Fellow England bowler Ollie Robinson revealed: “Woody’s just got this mad, unique energy. There’s no-one else like him.
“You think he’s drunk half the time yet he doesn’t touch a drop.
“Bear in mind this is a bloke who, ten minutes before we went out, literally at 10.50am, was on all fours barking in the changing-room, going, ‘There’s a dog in the dressing-room, there’s a dog in here, lads.’”
Robinson has never seen deliveries as fast as Wood’s thunderbolts in the Third Ashes Test.
Australia’s batsmen pretended they were not bothered but Robinson was not fooled.
He said: “I’ve never seen a spell like Woody’s on that first morning. I was at mid-off and, after the first few balls, I thought, ‘Jeez, that looks pretty quick.’
“Someone ran past me from slip and said they were standing past my bowling mark, which is 22-and-a-half metres back!
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“After the first over, I went to fine leg and I was standing no more than 15 yards behind Jonny Bairstow, thinking, ‘This is the fastest thing I’ve ever seen.’ It was crazy.
“It was just amazing to watch and be a part of. Though not so amazing for the batters, I’d imagine.”
Writing in Wisden, Robinson added: “Against pace like that, you pick up little quirks from batters that you don’t normally get.
“There was one ball that Marnus (Labuschagne) played and he had a sort of wry, awkward smile on his face. He was trying to give off the persona that everything’s fine, when it’s really not because someone’s bowling 95mph! You knew it was too quick for him after that.
“And even Uzzie (Usman Khawaja), who obviously plays pace really well and has been in such good form, struggled with the pace at times. He went from having this quiet persona at the crease to suddenly smiling and joking, trying to give off the feelgood vibes that he was fine.
“Every batter during that spell was doing the same thing. It was awkwardly fast and awkwardly uncomfortable and as a batter you’re trying to convey that you’re fine when you’re really not.
“Us bowlers were saying that, if we’d been batting out there, we might just have kicked our poles over!”