Mark Wood confident of recovering in time for Lord's Test

[[JUGRAJ SINGH]]

Mark Wood, England pacer, has revealed that he is on track to recover from his ankle injury and will be ready for the team's first Test against Pakistan set to start on July 14, at the Lord's.

"It's coming along nicely, I'm a month ahead of schedule," Wood told Sky Sports on Thursday (June 2). "I was originally meant to be back at the end of July, now I'm looking to play again by the end of June.

"I'm pleased with the progress, it's just a shame that I've missed the first part of the season but I'm hoping for a big bang in the second part of the season," he added.

The 26-year old went through a long period of struggle due to an injury on his left ankle. After going through most part of last year by taking painkilling injections, Wood decided to undergo surgery. As a result, he missed out on England's tour of South Africa and the ongoing three-match Test series against Sri Lanka.

Nonetheless, Wood said he will have adequate time to play a County Championship match before the start of the first Test. But he maintained that with England doing well at the moment, he wasn't sure that he will find it easy to get into the playing XI.

"They're doing pretty well at the minute so it'll be hard to get back in. England are doing really well so I'm going to have to pull out all the stops to get back in."

While he seemed pleased at the opportunity to watch the second Test against Sri Lanka from the dressing room, Wood didn't hold back on expressing his frustration of watching the action unfold from the sidelines.

"It's definitely worse watching because you can't affect the game but now I'm hoping to put that behind me and this month crack on with playing some games for Durham. Then if I do well for Durham then I'm looking to get back into that England side," he concluded.