How did Mark Wood get so quick? Advice from Michael Holding, Broad, and Anderson to increase the length of his run-up did the trick

Australian opener Usman Khawaja has been rock solid at the top of the order but he too could not deal with the extreme pace of Mark Wood on Thursday as a 152 KPH delivery with a little bit of inswing took the leg stump of the in-form left-hander. The Australian skipper Pat Cummins couldn’t even get his bat down in time as a scorcher rammed into his pad, leaving the bat dangling almost shoulder-high.In his spell after the tea break, the Durham bowler picked up four wickets giving away just five runs and was the chief architect in Australia’s collapse where they lost five wickets for just 23 runs. His 144 kmph bumper crashed onto the helmet of Alex Carey, trying to duck. A flustered Carey played a nothing shot next and was caught at extra cover who was halfway through the fence. It was reminiscent of Mitchell Johnson from the 2013/14 Ashes series who decimated the entire England team with pace and bounce.According to Cricviz the average speed of Mark Wood that day was 145.62 KPH which is the second fastest spell bowled in England; the fastest spell too belongs to the lanky pacer with 145.94 against New Zealand in 2021.

in the side. with FIVE wickets!
Take a bow, Mark Wood 👏
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There are quick bowlers like Mitchell Starc who start relatively slowly and build their pace into the spell. However, Wood despite coming on the back of an injury was charged up and started with a 149 KPH delivery.
“I think the last couple of years has proved I can go quicker. From a body point of view to be able to bowl just 12 overs, that hopefully stands us in good stead for the second innings. It’s not easy coming off the back of no bowling, but at the same time it’s a fine margin with me because if I bowl a lot I could get injured. So I’ve come in fresh and it’s been a good day but I don’t want to get ahead of myself – I’ve got to prove it again because the series is on the line,” Wood would say later.
The right-arm-quick – unlike Starc or some of the other extreme pacemen who are tall, have a high release point, pitch the ball up or resort to bouncers as plan B – is more of a pacer who consently hits the hard lengths and gets the ball to skid through. Michael Atherton on commentary compared Wood to former South African pacer Dale Steyn. Indian seamer Mohammed Shami also comes into a similar ilk of bowlers where their deliveries hurry onto the batters and are a lot quicker than batters anticipate.
Wood’s spell in Multan against Pakan in December on a flat surface where he picked up four wickets in the second innings to power England’s triumph and also his six-fer at Hobart in the last Ashes series indicate he can run through the opposition batting line-ups all himself in a single burst. He is not only quick but also accurate in his lines which makes him doubly dangerous. However, it was not the case in the early part of his career he had to change his run-up.
The change in the run-up
Wood had one of the smallest run-ups as a bowler who bowls that quickly. The only bowler similar to him is India’s Jasprit Bumrah. The short run-up meant that Wood was prone to injuries in the early part of his career. The 33-year-old made his Test debut way back in 2015 however, in the first three years of his career he picked up 30 wickets in 12 Tests at an average of 93.38.

Mark Wood is an entertainer, on and off the field! #woohoo #Ashes pic.twitter.com/idcKP9cLya
— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) July 7, 2023
“He had this short powerful run, and Jimmy (Anderson) and I actually sat down with him over dinner one night and talked about his views on potentially lengthening his run. The thing about a short run is that it puts a lot of pressure on your body because you’re having to really explode at the crease rather than carrying a bit more momentum with you that takes the stress off your body,” Stuart Broad said on Sky Sports.
Wood has acknowledged in the past that the process to change the length of the run-up began after advice from former West Indian cricketer Michael Holding.
“I told him what I felt: that he was rushing to get into the crease, as if he were thinking ‘oh I have to get there in a certain number of steps’. Instead of relaxing and gliding, he was rushing, almost anxious to get to the crease to release the ball. To me, it looked uncomfortable.” Holding said to The Indian Express.

In 2018, Wood explained the process on talkSPORT: “I spoke to Kevin Shine, the head bowling coach, and Chris Silverwood, and said that off my short run-up, I felt I was having to force it all the time. That meant I was putting more stress on than I needed to, having to ramp it up to get my top speed. So I pushed my run-up back so that it felt like I could cruise into it a little more and look for more rhythm, rather than trying to be at the top end all the time, and putting more stress on my body.”
Holding also recalled a conversation Wood had after picking nine wickets in a Test match at Johannesburg in 2020 after lengthening the run-up. “He would tell me later that he was a bit stubborn, then. And I can understand. Changing something that you are accustomed to isn’t easy. You can think “oh I am hitting almost 90, why change and mess up?”

Since the change of the run-up, Wood picked up 45 wickets at an average of 20.5 and started to play more games. It is even fair to say that he is quicker at 33 than he was at 25. “Since he has lengthened it, his rhythm looks wonderful. It was almost like watching one of the really quick bowlers from the Eighties. Hopefully, he’s settled into that quite well and it will allow his body to take a bit of pressure off the key parts of his ankles,” Broad said in the aftermath of Wood’s changed run-up in 2020.