When Mark Wood underwent surgery on an elbow injury in March, the England quick shared video of him on Instagram talking "absolute rubbish" after the operation while he was still under anaesthetic.
Among his hilarious ramblings, Wood asked whether his arm had been cut off before stating: "Whatever. I'll still bowl fast." And since returning to action against Pakistan after a six-month lay-off, Wood has been able to consistently crank up the pace.
Having been clocked at 97mph in his first game back, Wood has been the fastest bowler on show so far at the T20 World Cup. In a list compiled by the ICC, Wood was found to have bowled the tournament's fastest delivery during England's win over New Zealand.
The 32-year-old was clocked at 96.15mph during his first over, with the ball in question coming very close to dismissing Glenn Phillips for a first ball duck. However, Phillips got an inside edge and the ball flashed past his leg stump and ran away for four.
In fact, Wood has bowled six of the ten fastest deliveries at the World Cup, with only New Zealand's Lockie Ferguson and South Africa's Anrich Nortje appearing alongside him on the list.
Ferguson delivered the second-quickest ball, bowling a 96.03mph yorker to Andrew Balbirnie in New Zealand's win over Ireland. Nortje, meanwhile, appears on the list three times with his fastest delivery clocked at 95.88mph against Bangladesh.
Wood notably set a new record in England's opening World Cup game against Afghanistan when every ball he bowled was above 140kph (87mph), making it the quickest four over spell in T20 World Cup history according to CricViz. His average speed of 149kph (92.5mph) was also a new record.
"I feel I have more in the tank than that," he said after that spell, before ruling out the prospect of hitting the 100mph mark one day. "It's great to hear what speeds I was reaching but I want to keep pushing the boundaries to get quicker and quicker.
"When you look at the lads who are getting there [100mph] I don't think I'm in their bracket. I do think I've got more consistently higher pace than others around at the moment and I feel in a great place. Hopefully I can keep that going."
