Cricket-Disrupted preparations won’t be excuse for England at T20 World Cup, Wood says

(Reuters) – England will go into their Twenty20 World Cup defence slightly undercooked after two of their warm-up matches were rained out but fast bowler Mark Wood said his side are strong enough to cope with the curtailed build-up.

England’s four-match T20 series against Pakistan has been hampered by the weather, with two of the first three matches abandoned without a ball being bowled. The final match is scheduled for later on Thursday.

While some England players competed in the Indian Premier League others, like Wood, opted out of the tournament to manage their workload.

“I might be going into the tournament feeling fresh,” Wood told reporters ahead of the fourth match at The Oval.

“I’ve worked on a couple of things in training and you want the games to practise stuff, but it’s a fine balance.

“One or two of us might feel like we need a game or two to get going, but whatever preparation we get that’s what we’re going to have to go with.”

England head coach Matthew Mott missed the first match due to family reasons, while captain Jos Buttler returned home for the birth of his third child and was unavailable for the third match.

“Life things are sometimes more important than cricket. Those couple of instances were. I don’t think we should put a negative spin on them,” Wood said.

“It’s easy to look for excuses: we’ve had people away, the rain, whatever. We’re a professional side, we’re the England cricket team, we’ve got everything we need.

“We should be able to adapt and when we get out there that’s when the time to turn it on is.”

Holders England face Australia, Scotland, Oman and Namibia in Group B at the T20 World Cup in the United States and West Indies.

(Reporting by Aadi Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Rutherford)