“I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I didn’t try,” he admitted.<\/p>\n
“You just know you’re part of something bigger. It’s not just you that you’re playing for out there. It’s your team and your team-mates, all the hard work and the sacrifices they put in, the people watching at home and in the ground. You just feel a duty to do it for everyone.”<\/p>\n
While Atkinson attempted to protect Woakes from the strike, he was still required to run. On the first occasion, a bye through to wicketkeeper Dhruv Jurel, Woakes was instantly in clear discomfort.<\/p>\n
“The first one was the worst,” he said. “All I had taken was codeine and it was just so sore. Instinct took over here – even with my arm strapped down I tried to run as you naturally do. I genuinely worried my shoulder had popped back out again, hence you saw me throw my helmet off, rip the glove off with my teeth, and check it was OK.”<\/p>\n
Woakes ran three more runs during his 16-minute stay at the crease. Despite his bravery, England missed out on a 3-1 series triumph and instead had to settle for a share of the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy.<\/p>\n
“It was bitter-sweet in the end,” he added. “Part of me wondered what it might be like, to see if I could have defended the ball, seen out an over maybe, squeezed a run or carved a four.<\/p>\n
“But the other side of it was, ‘Thank God I didn’t face a 90mph bouncer, one-handed, facing the wrong way around’.<\/p>\n
“And I knew I was going to have to wear a few bouncers if I did get on strike. Those were the anxious feelings, really. You’re still pretty exposed out there.”<\/p>\n
Woakes is now waiting to discover the full extent of the injury, with his participation in this winter’s Ashes series in severe doubt.<\/p>\n
His actions have been praised across the sporting world and he said “the love from the public has helped”.<\/p>\n
“It’s not the way you want to be front-page news – you’d sooner it was for five wickets or a century,” added Woakes.<\/p>\n
“It is so weird to go from the start of a Test week, thinking ‘one last push’, to ending up on a physio’s table wondering what the future holds.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I didn’t try,” he admitted. “You just know…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4101],"tags":[1406,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-323627","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-cricket","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114984179733509413","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}