\n<\/p>\n
Ben Stokes and Mark Wood are expected to be \u201craring to go\u201d for the start of the Ashes next month, offering England a timely boost that sits in contrast to Australia\u2019s ongoing concerns over the fitness of Pat Cummins.<\/p>\n
As the two seamers with prior experience of playing Test cricket in Australia, Stokes and Wood are central to England\u2019s plans this winter. Stokes missed the fifth Test against India with a shoulder injury, however, while Wood sat out the entire summer following knee surgery back in March.<\/p>\n
Things appear to be coming together, at least, with the pair recently training in the heated outdoor nets at Loughborough alongside their Durham team-mate, Brydon Carse. While Cummins says he is \u201cunlikely\u201d to be ready for the first Test Perth that starts on 21 November due his lower back stress issue, England could have a full complement of seamers at their disposal.<\/p>\n
Carse said: \u201cBen is looking near enough 100% fit and so is Mark. I\u2019ve been bowling with them. It\u2019s exciting to see where they have got to after their setbacks during the summer. They will be raring to go come Australia time.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for his own knowledge of Australia, Carse was part of a successful Lions tour back in 2019\/20 and conditions should not be alien. The chief difference this time \u2013 beyond the quality of opposition \u2013 will be the presence of bumper crowds and thus some possible verbals on the boundary\u2019s edge.<\/p>\n
\u201c100%\u201d replied Carse, when asked if he was ready for this. \u201cThe way I play my cricket, I wear my heart on my sleeve. I wouldn\u2019t be expecting anything less and I\u2019m looking forward to the challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 30-year-old has also shown himself to be pretty adept with the Kookaburra ball, claiming 27 wickets in five Tests with it last winter. After a summer that then returned nine at 60 runs apiece against India, it may be that his style of muscular heft is better suited to away tours.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe played on some pretty batter-friendly wickets against India,\u201d Carse added. \u201cAt times I felt I deserved more than I got. I might not have got the rewards, but I\u2019m not looking too far into it going into the winter.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like bowling with the Kookaburra ball. It feels more comfortable in the hand than the Dukes. I think it\u2019s just personal preference. Sometimes the Dukes can have quite a pronounced seam and feels quite big in your hand. The Kookaburra can be slightly smaller but slightly wider.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ben Stokes and Mark Wood are expected to be \u201craring to go\u201d for the start of the Ashes next month, offering England a timely boost that sits in contrast to Australia\u2019s ongoing concerns over the fitness of Pat Cummins. As the two seamers with prior experience of playing Test cricket in Australia, Stokes and Wood<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[16527,16524,16525,1083,10423,572,16526,3985],"class_list":{"0":"post-27757","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ashes","9":"tag-brydon","10":"tag-carse","11":"tag-close","12":"tag-raring","13":"tag-reveals","14":"tag-stokes","15":"tag-wood"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}