Mark Wood turns film reviewer, revels in Ben Stokes’ return, talks white-ball contracts and reveals what event he’d tackle if he was a Winter Olympian…
This is my first trip to New Zealand and I’m absolutely loving it. I’ve had the chance to explore a little in the last week or so ahead of the ODI series and it’s been fun and therapeutic.
David Willey, Mark Saxby the masseur and I went climbing in Auckland and Wills brought his young son, Jacob, who is only a few months old; I was on pram duty so pushing him up the mountain was good for fitness!
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We’ve been working incredibly hard on training days but Mark has really encouraged the lads to get out and see some amazing places rather than just sit around the hotel and it’s been fascinating to find out more about the Maori culture in particular.
We also went to an amazing place called Raglan, which is a bit of a hippy, surfing town. The views were so cool and we found an incredible waterfall; it was incredibly relaxing and a reminder of how privileged we are as England cricketers to travel the world.
The arrival of the one-day lads has freshened up the group and given everyone a bit of a lift.
Obviously things didn’t go our way in the T20s – we didn’t play as well as we wanted – so to see the likes of Rooty, Woakesy, Stokesy and Mo again has been great, especially for me to catch up with Stokesy – one of my best mates.
He’s been through a lot lately but he’s fitted straight back in and is just one of the lads when he’s around the team; it’s great that England create an environment where he can just be himself and he can get on with preparing for the series and I know he’s excited and looking forward to playing again.
We constantly go out for food together as a group, which is great for team morale, and I’ve been able to go to the cinema, which I love.
Liam Plunkett usually comes with me but Pudsey’s now at home so I’ve had to get a new gang together. Woakes, Morgy and I went to see ‘The Greatest Showman’, which is a musical drama starring Hugh Jackman.
I found it a little bit cringy, to be honest, and was saying to Woakesy ‘why are they singing all the time, when they can just chat?’ but Woakesy absolutely loved it and, surprisingly, so did Stokesy; he was the one who recommended that we went to see it!
I didn’t realise he’s such a musical movie fan, especially as he usually listens to rap and R&B in the dressing room! I’ll have to watch him in case it sparks some ‘Grease Lightning’ moves out on the field!
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Unbelievably, he knows all of the words to one of the songs. Someone’s obviously told them to him as he cannot read!
Before I flew out Tom Latham, my team-mate at Durham, had told me a little bit about how awesome this country is and just after I got the call from Chennai Super Kings to play in the IPL I got to meet Stephen Fleming, who is going to be my coach.
Mitchell Santner will also be part of the Super Kings set up but we won’t be getting too friendly in this series! There’s too much fire in the belly for that. A lot of the lads know Kane Williamson, who seems like the nicest bloke in the world until you bowl a good ball and he whacks it for six!
The great thing about playing New Zealand is they are very, very competitive on the field but off the field they are a good bunch of lads.
I felt that my spell to David Warner in the first ODI against Australia helped to set the tone for the series and if I get the chance I’d love to do that again here. Conditions will be different here and the grounds tend to be a lot smaller so we’ll have to adapt quickly.
Adil Rashid says he hasn't the heart to play red-ball cricket just now…
There has been plenty of chat in the build-up to the series about Alex Hales and Adil Rashid signing white-ball contracts and why I completely understand why those lads have done it – and while you can never-say-never – my ultimate goal is to play Test cricket for England.
My mindset right now is that I wouldn’t give up my dream of pursuing that; I’ve done ok in Test cricket so far but I haven’t produced anywhere near what I believe I can.
I wouldn’t want to give up playing four-day cricket for Durham either because I love the red-ball game and how it tests you across a long period of time.
I had a lot of fun (it was hard work, actually) trying to teach Sam Billings a bit of Geordie the other day and now I’m searching for my next target.
I wouldn’t have much chance with Morgy because I can’t understand him either. That wouldn’t be a good two-way street.
Chris Woakes has been giving it big licks, saying that he would have gotten all of Bilbo’s questions right so he is maybe on my radar a little bit. I might turn up the heat on him.
Quite a few of us have been watching the Winter Olympics and discussing which events we’d do best in.
I’m sure Rash would go well in the curling, giving it a decent spin but I think my event would have to be the slalom skiing.
It probably isn’t the best one to pick given my injury record but the speed and excitement of it would certainly get the adrenalin flowing.
I went skiing in the Alps once when I was about 16, with my school, and by the end of the trip I was quite good. I’d love to do it again but it probably wouldn’t be the smartest thing to do while I’m still playing cricket!
I did have a go at body-boarding in Raglan, though, which was great; that’s probably as far as I can go at the moment in terms of being an adrenalin junkie – unless I’m the victim of a shark attack!
Watch England’s five-match ODI series against New Zealand on Sky Sports Cricket, starting with the opener in Hamilton, live from 12.30am on Saturday night/Sunday morning.
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