Ashes 2023: Headingley hero Chris Woakes admits he thought his Test career was over

By India Today Sports Desk: One of England’s heroes at Headingley, Chris Woakes, has admitted that he thought his Test career was over before his starring role in the third Ashes 2023 Test.

Woakes made an impact with both bat and ball as England made a comeback in the ongoing series at Leeds with a three-wicket win. The bowling all-rounder picked up six wickets in the match and scored an important 32 in the second innings as England completed the run chase to make the series 2-1.

However, injury had kept the 34-year-old out of last summer when England started using Bazball under Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum and started getting success in the longest format of the game.

Woakes then made the call to skip this season’s IPL and make his way back into the Test side and the 34-year-old is happy with the decision he made.

Speaking to The Telegraph, Woakes said he thought that his Test career was done and that the ship had sailed. The all-rounder said that he was happy with the decision to skip the IPL and the victory at Headingley justified the call he made.

“It’s hard, it’s quite emotional actually,” Woakes said. “You sometimes think the ship has sailed, of course you do. Especially when the team is going so well last summer and I wasn’t involved, obviously I had injuries and stuff. You do wonder whether that ship has sailed. But I made a big decision at the start of summer not to go to India and, you know, it’s days like I had at Headingley make that sort of decision pay off, comfortably.”

England had announced their squad for the fourth Test and they remained unchanged for the match at Manchester.

ENGLAND SQUAD: Ben Stokes (captain), Moeen Ali, James Anderson, Jonathan Bairstow, Stuart Broad, Harry Brook, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Dan Lawrence, Ollie Robinson, Joe Root, Josh Tongue, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood.