WI vs ENG: Mark Wood Opens Up On The Absence Of James Anderson-Stuart Broad For West Indies Test Series

The first Test between West Indies and England is underway in Antigua with the visitors scoring 311 in the first innings. Mark Wood and Chris Woakes are leading the England attack in the absence of veterans James Anderson and Stuart Broad. The British bowlers have found it tough to break through the Windies’ batting line-up at regular intervals.

England scored 311 batting first. Apart from JonnyBairstow’s 140, the rest of the England batters hardly contributed with the bat. Joe Root (13), Ben Stokes (36), Ben Foakes (42) and Chris Woakes (28) all got starts but failed to convert it into a big score. Wood spoke about the lower-order not supporting Bairstow to take England past 350.

“As bowlers, we work really hard on our batting and I think we could have stuck with Jonny a little bit more. I was disappointed with my shot. We could have got even more runs. From 48 for four, you think 311 is a really good total. But overnight we were hoping for more. It’s something to work on” said Wood.

West Indies in response to England’s 311 have already scored 202/4 by the end of the day’s play on day 2. England have clearly missed the veterans and found it tough to take wickets. Anderson has 640 wickets in 169 Tests, while Broad picked up 537 wickets in 152 Tests for England.

Their absence shows the experience that is missing in the bowling lineup at the moment. Wood further said that the rest of the England bowlers have tried to cover up as much as they could in the absence of  Broad and Anderson.

Tried Too Hard To Fill The Void Of Broad And Anderson: Mark Wood

“We maybe tried a little bit too hard, with the void of Anderson and Broad we wanted to try hard and prove we could do it. Of course, it’s weird [without them]. It’s obviously going to be talked about because they are legends. But we just have to admit we didn’t get it right to start with and we’ll be out to get it right next time. We were all a bit inconsistent, we didn’t get our lengths quite right and we were a little bit too full or too short. But actually, I thought we came back really well,” Wood was quoted as saying by the Guardian.

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