Modern-day great England fast bowler Mark Wood has announced his retirement from international cricket after 11 years of service to the Three Lions. This comes after he was out of action for 10 months following a knee injury in November 2025.
Despite what can be described as an injury-laden career, the 26-year-old pacer will be remembered not only as one of the fastest bowlers of the last decade but also as an incredible professional who stepped up when his team needed him most.
Across formats, Wood played nearly 150 international games for England and took over 250 wickets. Today, we will be looking at the top five greatest Mark Wood performances in international cricket.
Top Five Greatest Mark Wood Performances In International Cricket
5) 2022 T20 World Cup
The 2022 T20 World Cup was the culmination of England’s revolutionary ‘Bazball’ mindset, which was mostly applicable to Test cricket but also fanned out to other formats. The tournament, played in Australia, saw England dominate the competition and win it for the second time in their history.
England played five games in the Super 12 stage, of which they won three and lost one, finishing second in their group. Next came the semi-final, where they defeated the mighty India by 10 wickets before edging past Pakistan in the final.
Mark Wood was part of the England squad for that World Cup and played the first four matches. He took two wickets against Afghanistan in the tournament opener. He was then England’s best performer in an upset loss to Ireland, where he took three wickets.
The next match against Australia was washed out, following which came a win against table leaders New Zealand, where Mark took one wicket and bowled economically. Finally, in a must-win game against Sri Lanka, Wood bowled an excellent spell of 3/26.
However, after taking nine wickets in four games and being not only the quickest bowler in the competition but also the most consistent, Mark Wood suffered an injury and was ruled out of the knockouts.
Despite not being available to finish the job and participate in the semis and the final, Wood’s nine wickets in four matches were crucial in their side winning the 2022 T20 World Cup, proving that the pacer steps up when his team needs him the most.
4) 2021-22 Ashes Test 5, Hobart
The 2021-22 Ashes down under was a horrid time for the English Cricket Team, and the competition compelled them to change the structure of Test cricket in England. The Three Lions had lost the first three games of the series comprehensively and escaped with a draw in the fourth.
The fifth and final match of the Ashes was played at Hobart. England, already trailing 3-0 in the series, were playing for nothing but salvaging some of their lost reputation. However, that seemed unlikely after both sides played their first innings. While the Aussies scored 303 runs while batting first, the English were bundled out for 188 and trailed by 115 runs.
Needing to stop Australia to a small total in the third innings, the England bowlers took to the field with a lot on their shoulders. And the man for the job was Mark Wood.
Wood bowled 16.3 overs in the third innings of that match, in which he conceded 37 runs with an economy of 2.24. More importantly, he took six wickets, blowing the Baggy Green away with his sheer pace and incredible consistency.
With the help of Wood’s career-best figures in a single innings of 6/37, England managed to stop Australia to just 155 runs and set up an achievable target of 271 runs in the fourth innings.
England was bundled out for a pathetic 124 runs in the final innings, losing the match by 146 runs and the series 4-0. And while the English were down and out for the entire series, Mark Wood’s career-best spell was a beacon of light in an otherwise dark time in England’s cricketing history.
3) Man of the Match Performance in the 2023 Ashes At Leeds
Despite their horrid showing at the previous Ashes series, England were considered the favourites to come out on top in the 2023 Ashes series at home. This was due to them having adopted the ‘Bazball’ ideology, revolutionising Test cricket over the past year.
Despite the home team being the favourite, the scrappy Aussies managed to win the first two Tests in the series by small margins, putting the English under pressure and giving them a scare of losing the Ashes at home.
This brings us to the third match of the series, played at Headingley in Leeds. After not featuring in the first two Tests of this series, Mark Wood was brought into the side for the third and immediately made his mark.
Australia batted first and put up a decent total of 263 runs on the back of a fine hundred by Mitchell Marsh. However, the star of the show was Wood, who decimated the Aussie batting attack with the figures of 5/34 in 11.4 overs, taking big wickets, including that of Marsh.
After England conceded a 36-run lead to Australia after the first innings, they needed to control the damage and stop the opposition from reaching a relatively small total. Stopping the Aussies at just 224 runs, Wood was solid in the second innings as well, putting up the figures of 2/66 in 17 overs.
But that is not the end of Mark Wood’s contribution to this match. In England’s first innings, the pacer scored 24 crucial runs in just eight deliveries, helping England go past the 200-run mark.
Then, in the final innings of the match, England fell to 230/7 while chasing 254. With a real threat of the tail being wiped out, Mark Wood stood out with the bat once again, scoring 16 runs in eight deliveries and finishing the game for England in a three-wicket win.
This match was the turning point of the series. The fourth Test was a memorable draw in Manchester, where England dominated. The Three Lions then won the fifth and final Test to draw this iconic series 2-2.
Check Out: Top Five Greatest Mark Wood Performances
2) Career Best Test Figures Against South Africa In Johannesburg, 2020
In what would end up being their last international tour for some time, England travelled to South Africa in December 2019 for a Test, an ODI, and a T20I series in the months before the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world.
The tour, after a few practice matches, truly got underway with a four-match Test series. Despite losing the first game by 107 runs in Centurion, this series was a victory lap for the English, who went on to win the remainder of the three matches. They won the second game in Cape Town by 189 runs, then won the third in Port Elizabeth by an innings and 53 runs.
However, to put the series to bed, the Three Lions needed a positive result in the fourth and final Test match, played in one of the three national capitals, Johannesburg.
England batted first on what looked like a fine batting pitch on day one at the Wanderers, scoring 400 runs with four of their batters scoring half-centuries. Mark Wood contributed well with the bat here, scoring 35 runs.
But Wood would not leave a true mark on this game till the second innings, as South Africa came on to bat for the first time. Mark Wood would tear through the Proteas’ middle order, putting up the incredible figures of 5/46 and leading England in stopping South Africa to a measly total of 183.
With a 217-run lead, England scored 248 runs, leaving a target of 466 runs in the final innings.
Mark Wood was once again the standout English bowler in the fourth innings, registering the figures of 4/54, being his team’s leading wicket-taker once again and stopping the Proteas at 274 runs as England won the match by 191 runs, winning the series 3-1 in the process.
This match would be Mark Wood’s best career figures in Test cricket. Across two innings, he put up the figures of 9/100 and helped England put up one of their best Test series wins in recent years.
1) 2019 ODI World Cup
The 2019 Men’s ODI Cricket World Cup was the 12th edition of the tournament and the fifth one played on English soil. England, despite being the creators of cricket, had never won the biggest tournament in the sport.
Entering the 2019 ODI World Cup, the Three Lions were one of the favourites to win it all. Their recent turnaround in limited-overs cricket made them one of the best ODI and T20I teams in the world. Couple that with the fact that the last two World Cups had been won by the home sides.
Mark Wood had been a crucial part of the England squad going into the competition. He missed the first game against South Africa due to a minor foot injury but returned to the playing 11 against Pakistan in the next match, bowling a fine 10-over spell of 2/53 in a high-scoring game that ended in a defeat.
Then, in a win against Bangladesh, he took two wickets for 52 runs in eight overs, followed by his tournament-best figures of 3/18 in a triumph against the West Indies. A 15-run win against Afghanistan came next for the three Lions, where Wood took two wickets and conceded 40 runs in 10 overs.
In the team’s sixth game of the competition, England lost to Sri Lanka by 20 runs, but Mark Wood was the standout performer for his side, bowling an eight-over spell of 3/40. A loss to Australia was next, where Wood put up average figures of 1/59.
Then came a must-win match against India. And while the English did win that high-scoring game, Mark Wood put up his worst performance in the tournament, a 10-over spell of 0/73, his only wicketless match in the 2019 World Cup.
The last group-stage game was against New Zealand. England needed a win here against a strong Kiwi side. And in a game where it mattered most, Mark Wood stepped up to the plate and bowled the best spell of the match, bowling nine overs, conceding just 34 runs in a high-scoring match, and taking three wickets. He even ran out the opposition captain, Kane Williamson.
England was not in the semi-final of an ODI World Cup for the first time since 1992. Here, they faced arch-rivals Australia in a knockout game. Wood, playing his 50th ODI, bowled a decent enough nine-over spell of 1/45 as England cruised into the final with a massive win.
In the final, the Three Lions took on New Zealand. In the most iconic final of a cricket World Cup, Mark Wood’s 10-over spell of 1/49 was not the biggest news. However, no one can ignore Wood’s contribution to England winning their first-ever World Cup.
In the 2019 ODI World Cup, Mark Wood finished as England’s second-highest wicket-taker, taking 18 scalps in 10 matches at an average of 25.72 and an economy of 5.16. He took a wicket in all but one of the 10 games he played and took multiple wickets in six of his 10. This tournament made the pacer a cult hero in his native land.
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