Ollie Robinson thinks Australia’s batters were frightened of Mark Wood’s red-hot pace throughout his electrifying return for England at Headingley recently and thinks the quick bowler can be the definitive consider the last 2 Ashes Tests.
England enter into next week’s fourth Test at Old Trafford 2-1 down after their three-wicket win in Leeds and in Wood, who hit 96.5 miles per hour in his very first Test for 6 months, Robinson understands the hosts have a bowler with a mental hang on the opposition.
“I’ve never seen a spell like Woody’s on that first morning,” Robinson said in his column for Wisden.com.
“I was at mid-off to start with, and first few balls, I thought, ‘Jeez, that looks pretty quick.’ He carried on through the over, finished the job, and then someone ran past me from slip and said that they were standing past my bowling mark, which is 22-and-a-half metres back!
“After the first over I went to fine leg, and I was standing no more than 15 yards behind Johnny, thinking, literally, ‘This is the fastest thing I’ve ever seen’. It was crazy.
“Against pace like that, you pick up little quirks from batters that you don’t normally get, and as bowlers, I think we pick up on it more. There was one ball that Marnus [Labuschagne] played, and after it 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, even he struggled with it 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.”
Robinson likewise revealed Wood’s bark is as bad as the bite of his speed.
“Woody’s just got this mad, unique energy,” he said.
“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, 10 minutes before we went out, literally at 10:50am, was on all-fours barking on the changing room floor, going, “There’s a dog in the dressing room. There’s a dog in here, lads.”
Robinson likewise revealed he is totally for Old Trafford after sustaining a back spasm that limited him to simply 11.2 overs at Headingley.
“I think we caught it earlier than I have done in the past. I had a bit of treatment, and I was fine after that. I was available to bowl on the third day if I’d been needed. I’m 100 per cent fit for Manchester.”
