England added speedster Mark Wood to their squad for the second Test against West Indies which is set to be played at the Trent Bridge in Nottingham from July 18.
England currently lead the three-Test series after handing a humiliating defeat to West Indies by an innings and 114 in the first match of the series which was held at Lord’s Cricket Ground.
Wood will replace James Anderson in the 14-man squad as the 41-year-old retired from red-ball cricket after playing his last-ever Test match at Lord’s.
The last time Wood was in action was during the red-ball tour to India in March earlier this year and he was benched for the Lord’s Test as the English board wanted to give him enough rest after participating in the T20 World Cup 2024, where England lost to India in the semi-final.
"Once you come out of T20 cricket, then you're going into Test cricket very quickly... there's a period there where you can't just throw someone into a Test match," England men's managing director, Rob Key, said when the squad was announced.
"Rest is probably not the right term but we'll look to make him [Wood] available for selection for the second and third Tests, hopefully."
England called up Gus Atkinson for his first Test at Lord’s and the pacer bagged 12 wickets for 16 runs across two innings, which was the fourth-best match figures by a red-ball debutant in history.
England squad for second Test:
Ben Stokes (capt), Gus Atkinson, Shoaib Bashir, Harry Brook, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Dan Lawrence, Dillon Pennington, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Joe Root, Jamie Smith, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood
It is worth mentioning that despite the heavy win, England continued to sit on ninth place on the WTC points table as they have just won four out of 11 matches as their Test tour to India earlier this year was not a success.
In Ashes 2023, they lost 19 points over the course of five Tests which dented their chances of making it to the WTC final. England now have 33 points from 11 Tests and they would need to recover big-margin wins in their next matches to improve their position on the points table.
- Mark Wood
