It might have taken opening of a map of Australia to explain to English quick Mark Wood, that no matter how quickly Travis Head had cleared up his itinerary, his idea of driving across to Brisbane for the second Test, was not very smart.
But then again, the cerebral bowler, might simply have been joking.
Fox Cricket reminded the pacer that his fancy road trip idea to get over the heartbreak of the Head-smash of England in the first Test at Ashes, would run into a problem: Perth and Brisbane are 4308 kms away on Google Maps. Wood had revealed he considered driving from Perth to Brisbane to “take his mind off the two-day first Test loss.”
Wood is 35, and a fast bowler, who could spare himself a 4-day drive. ‘He did not realise quite how long the drive would be – roughly 4308 kilometres, and taking 46 hours according to Google Maps, if he was going from Perth Stadium straight to the Gabba. Realistically, that’s more than four days of driving,’ Fox wrote.
But Wood told Stuart Broad’s For The Love of Cricket podcast that Travis Head had properly scrambled his. “It didn’t matter what we did; he (Head) just smacked everything. I know he’s a good player, and we all respect how good he is, but that was something else.
“We bowled, what, like 30 overs? And it felt like it was over in 10 minutes … the game was almost like in fast-forward mode,” Wood continued.
The proposed drive, because Wood fears flying (a legitimate concern), but hardly with the same solutions as getting behind the wheels at Durham to play at Somerset (two relative corners), is treacherous to say the least if the end destination is to draw an Ashes latest series 1-1.
‘People outside Australia don’t seem to understand how big Australia is. Enter England quick Mark Wood. With the first Test done in two days, he asked his coaches about whether he could drive to Brisbane for the second Test.
He was quickly shown a map,’ Fox wrote.
The drive as per Fox would’ve seen Wood crossing the Nullarbor, then turning off the A1 in Winninowie in South Australia to head through New South Wales, crossing the Queensland border at Goondiwindi, and arriving cooked for Brisbane, perhaps ready only for Adelaide.
Nullarbor is a semi-arid plain in southern Australia, with no trees or shade, though there are sudden coastal cliffs and limestone caves. Wood, if he was on vacation, might not have been off target as its a major self-drive route along the Eyre Highway. There are serious distractions – you can play golf on the Nullarbor Links, a 1,365-kilometer (848 mile) golf course linking random roadhouses along the Eyre Highway, making it the longest golf course in the world.
But Wood is in Australia to win Ashes in cricket. He said as much that ‘England were hit hard but have four games to throw some back.”
“We know this is one of five,” Wood told Broad. “There has to be reflection of what went on, understand the disappointment but also know we did some good things in this game. Can we take them into the other four games? This is not one, it’s one of five. We’ve been hit pretty hard in round one, but we’ve got other rounds to try and throw some back.”
He presumably has traded his camper van dreams for a flight into Brisbane on Wednesday for a Test 10 days after the Perth pasting.
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