English fast bowling all-rounder Mark Wood has accepted that some of his England teammates have been “naive” and the comments made by them to the media have been “a bit dumb”.
“Sometimes we’ve been so… naive, a bit dumb, in the things we say in the press. We’ll say things in the dressing room and that is in the dressing room. It should stay there,” said Wood on Wednesday in the Sky Sports Cricket Podcast.
“Then we come out in the press and we’ll say an off-the-cuff one-liner that maybe a group of lads have been talking about, it’s in the press, then it looks like we’re ‘Billy Big Boots’, above our station,” said Wood. “I don’t particularly like that. We’ve got to be respectful. (But) I’m not kicking off at the other players,” he added.
Ben Duckett recently stated that if England won the Champions Trophy, he would not mind losing the One-Day international series in India 3-0. Similarly, Zak Crawley said that the team’s focus during the 2023 Ashes is entertainment rather than winning or losing.
Last month, England’s managing director of men’s cricket, Rob Key, admitted that players “speak a lot of rubbish a lot of the time”.
The English cricketers have also faced heat and criticism for being more concerned about their golf game instead of focusing on cricket. Former captain Kevin Pietersen was also unhappy with England’s approach during their white ball tour of India, where England lost 4-1 in T20Is and 3-0 in the One-Day Internationals, winning just once in eight games.
Wood, however, defended his team and brushed aside the suggestions that his England players are not training hard enough.
“One thing that does bother me is this narrative of ‘Golf, golf, golf, ‘” he said. “I don’t play golf. I don’t like it. It’s not a game for me. I know the lads enjoy it and that’s their time off. At times, it’s as if the golf is more important, and that is not true at all. We train hard,” added the 35-year-old.
