Mark Wood has admitted he looks back on England's Ashes performance with shame after the collapse in Perth, saying the tourists let a decisive opportunity slip through their hands.
The 36-year-old fast bowler, who had been battling an elbow injury before the series and then a knee problem, said England should have won the opener against Australia. He has not played since being ruled out of the tour with that same knee issue, and his frustration is rooted in a series that changed direction in a single match.
The Perth Test changed everything
England were in control in the series opener in Perth, leading by 105 runs with nine second-innings wickets in hand before falling apart. Australia chased 205 in just 28.2 overs, with Travis Head striking 123 in a brutal finish that turned a promising position into a damaging defeat.
Wood said the scale of the missed chance still stings. “I look back on it shamefully,” he said on Test Match Special, adding that England “should have won that first game” and that “the whole tour is different if we win in Perth.”
That is the real weight of the admission. This was not just one bad session or one poor decision. It was a collapse that shifted the tone of the Ashes and, in Wood's eyes, left England feeling as though Australia had been there to be beaten.
Why Wood says England were there for the taking
Wood's view is blunt because he believes the moment demanded more decisive action. He said Australia were “there for the taking” and suggested England needed a stronger response once the game began to slip away.
He also recalled the pressure of watching the situation unravel and the sense that England had reached a point where intervention had to come quickly. “What are we actually doing here, because this is the last resort? If you don't change it now, we're finished, and the game is literally gone,” he said.
For England, that is what makes Perth such a painful reference point. A lead of 105 runs with nine wickets remaining should have left them in command. Instead, Australia found a way back, and the tourists never recovered their grip on the series.
Why Wood was never close to full readiness
Wood's honesty also reflects the difficult lead-up to the Ashes. Before the series, he had gone 16 months without playing a Test because of first an elbow injury and then a knee problem.
In the build-up, his only cricket was a warm-up game against England Lions at Lilac Hill, where he bowled just eight overs because of hamstring tightness. That means his sense of frustration was not only about the result in Perth, but also about knowing he was nowhere near a smooth run into the series.
Even so, his verdict on the collapse is stark. England had their chance, Wood believes, and once they let it go in Perth, the rest of the tour became a far harder task.
