Wood wary of The Hundred: 'I’d give it a good go but to think you could go for 60 in 10 balls!'

HUW TURBERVILL: If you feel sorry for Malcolm Nash, how about the unlucky bowlers who could be required to bowl 10-ball overs in a couple of summers’ time?

^{Durham and England bowler Mark Wood}

If you feel sorry for Malcolm Nash, how about the unlucky bowlers who could be required to bowl 10-ball overs in a couple of summers’ time?

Nash was famously hit for six sixes by Sir Garfield Sobers at the St Helen’s ground in Swansea 50 years ago (and you can hear what they both have to say about that in the July edition of The Cricketer, out now).

But now there is a prospect of someone having bowling figures of 1-0-60-0.

Durham and England’s Mark Wood will certainly tackle it with caution if he is playing for one of The Hundred’s new teams and is asked to deliver the finale.

“I think a lot of batters are queuing up for this in the competition!” he says. “For me personally I’m not a massive fan of that, I mean I’d give it a good go but to think you could go for 60 in 10 balls! Especially if the first two balls go for six, you’ll be thinking, ‘Oh no, I’ve got eight balls to go here’ so it’s not going to be the best. But what I’ve heard is that you can chop and change.

“It would depend how the first three balls go! If I get a couple of wickets I’ll be thinking, ‘Ahh yeah I think I’ll stay on here!’; but if I get whacked then I’ll think, ‘Ahh yeah fair enough!’”

^{Wood says he would give the 10-ball over a go}

Asked if he would be tired, he said: “Not off my run-up, maybe not! Maybe that’s why they want me to bowl that over, I don’t know! It’s not the physicality, it’s more the mental state of getting hit for a couple of sixes early doors and then you think, ‘Oh no here we go,’ but if it is a 10-ball over then it could change the game dramatically, couldn’t it? If someone gets hold of one bowler… we were joking yesterday that actually just have two bowlers who just bowl from one end each. You play nine batsmen and have two bowlers, and we’ll get smacked!

“At the minute I don’t know too much about The Hundred, so I’m quite open to it. Just from the discussions that were had and things, it seems like it’s not set in stone.

“The counties have had a big discussion about it. I wasn’t in that meeting but I’ve managed to chat about it here with the England lads. I think a lot of the Durham lads are a little bit nervous because we wouldn’t have a franchise. I think the way it’s going to work is the Blast will run along anyway, so lads would still play but if it’s going to be a big competition then the lads will want to be in the Hundred, so I think they’re a little bit worried that they might not get a spot in there.”

Asked if he wanted to play for the ‘local’ Leeds team, or one of the other seven, he says: “I really don’t mind. After going to Chennai [for the IPL] I really don’t mind. I think the Vitality Blast is obviously the competition I’ve played in before and enjoyed, and I hope they can keep the same sort of format, what with Freddie [Flintoff] falling over and singing with Bumble… that sort of same line-up with that fun around it and sort of daftness.

“Hopefully if the Hundred does come in then it’s marketed as well as the Big Bash because I think that’s something everyone draws influence from, and then to maybe just add a little bit of something else in the mix.

“If we get the same stars who are going to the IPL, that’s the whole point… the Blast is something you get the best local players and with the odd overseas and that sort of puts them in the shop window, and I hope that this still does that and that it improves the standard for England and world competitions.”

Mark Wood was speaking at the launch of the Vitality Blast. Vitality offers health insurance, life insurance & investments www.vitality.co.uk