England have recalled Mark Wood for Thursday’s second Test against West Indies at Trent Bridge following the retirement of Jimmy Anderson.
Wood’s selection means there will be no debut for Nottinghamshire quick Dillon Pennington, with the management keen to hit the tourists with the pace of Wood and Gus Atkinson, who took 12 wickets on debut at Lord’s last week.
The availability of captain Ben Stokes to bowl once more after knee surgery has hastened the return of Wood, who can be used more easily in short bursts in an attack containing five frontline bowlers rather than four.
Zak Crawley, meanwhile, has played down concerns about his failure to turn fifties into hundreds, and insisted he has only one goal: ‘To win more games for England.’
The 76 he made in England’s innings win at Lord’s was his fifth score in the seventies in his last 12 innings, yet he still boasts just four hundreds from 45 matches and a modest average of 33.
Mark Wood has been named in England's XI to face West Indies at Trent Bridge
He replaces Jimmy Anderson following his international retirement last week
A win for Ben Stokes's side would wrap up a series win with a Test to spare
Meanwhile, opening batter Zak Crawley has insisted he is not concerned about not converting fifties into hundreds over the last 12 months
But only Joe Root has scored more Test runs in the Bazball era than Crawley’s 1,600, while the claim made by head coach Brendon McCullum two years ago that Crawley was ‘never going to be a consistent type of cricketer’ has been belied by a string of starts: since the beginning of last summer, he has been dismissed in single figures only three times out of 22.
‘The average certainly doesn’t bother me,’ said Crawley ahead of Thursday’s second Test at Trent Bridge. ‘But I’d like to win more games for England. I’ve played some really good knocks, but that’s my main goal: how many match-winning performances can I get for my team? I probably haven’t won that many games.
‘I’ve certainly never looked at my average and gone: “Oh, I hope I can get it higher.” England is a pretty tough place to open, and with half your games here. I don’t get caught up in things like that, otherwise I’ll get pretty down myself.’
‘I got 76 last week and we won, so I was happy with that. If I’d got 76 and we’d lost, I’d have questioned myself whether I could have got more.’
England team: 1 Zak Crawley, 2 Ben Duckett, 3 Ollie Pope, 4 Joe Root, 5 Harry Brook, 6 Ben Stokes (capt), 7 Jamie Smith (wkt), 8 Chris Woakes, 9 Gus Atkinson, 10 Mark Wood, 11 Shoaib Bashir.