‘Life after Cricket’: Ashes hero Mark Wood hints at retirement amid injury recovery

England fast bowler Mark Wood has admitted to thinking about ‘life after cricket’ as he continues to recover from the knee injury he sustained during the Ashes opener last year and has been out of action since. At 36, Wood reveals his recovery is slower than he expected, hinting at less playing time should he attain full fitness in the near future. Out for nearly 15 months with an elbow injury before returning to the squad for the first Ashes Test in Perth, Wood has been absent since, missing the remaining four Tests Down Under, the away white-ball series against Sri Lanka, and the recently concluded T20 World Cup.

"It's real slow going with the stage I'm at in my career," Wood said of his recovery update while chatting on the Tailenders podcast. "It's quite a fine balance, where if I push this too hard, then that could be it."

Explaining that although there was improvement in his recovery, it’s split into two phases.

"It's six-week blocks, it's not day by day, it's specialists and rescans every six weeks. It's been improving since what I got told had been an explosion in my knee in Australia.

"So, every six weeks has been an improvement. I've started running now, and I'm hoping by the next block it's in a position where maybe I can start lightly bowling,” Wood continued.

Wood’s career has been marred by multiple injuries over the years, including several knee and elbow operations, which robbed England of one of its finest quick bowlers.

"I tried to get back at certain points, but my knee wasn't quite ready," he said. “It's easy in hindsight, even if I was at 80%, then at least the game would have given us an indicator of where I was.”

‘Life after cricket’

Tired of recovering from injuries and frustration building around, the pace spearhead admitted for the first time that he thought of his life after cricket, exploring options to stay connected to the game.

"I've started thinking about other things, doing podcasts, doing my coaching badges.

"I've now started to try and think for the first time about what I should do if this doesn't go well."

Meanwhile, should he decide to hang up his boots as things stand, Wood would end his Test career with 119 wickets in 38 appearances since making his Test debut in 2015, the year in which he won his first and only Ashes.