‘Return from elbow injury is a slow process’- Mark Wood

England pacer Mark Wood is disappointed with the slow rehab process as he continues to recover from the elbow injury he caught in the West Indies tour earlier this year.

Wood picked up an elbow injury during the recent tour of the West Indies, which required surgery. The right arm Durham quick was eyeing a comeback in this year's T20 Blast for his county but realized that his rehab has been slower than expected. 

After playing just five Tests in the winter, he is not too optimistic that he will be able to play against South Africa in August and be available for all the games.

"I'm off half a run-up," Mark Wood was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo.

"I'm hoping that I can get off my full run-up in the next couple of weeks and then hopefully play for Durham. But at the minute it's a little bit slow going. Every time I bowl at the moment, there's still a bit of swelling. They've assured us that that's normal because I had surgery five weeks ago, so it's still a little bit raw.

If I can build up through one-day cricket first, that will make it easier for us to then come back in the Test matches later in the summer. But, from the roster of fast bowling, I think we're all trying to get fit as quickly as we can, but it's slow going at the minute," he added.

"After probably two years of not many injuries at all, playing a lot of games felt pretty good. So having a sustained period off is pretty frustrating when I felt like I was coming up to the best part of playing for England, consistently bowling and taking wickets. But if I do get back, I've got the confidence of that two years that I can fall back on," Wood said.

Jofra Archer will miss the summer season due to a stress fracture of his back. Speaking on Archer and the conversation that he had with the Sussex pacer, Wood said, "I saw him the other week. I mentioned my elbow and said how it was feeling. He said it was similar to how he was feeling at the same stage when he was coming back. So I ran it by him to make sure I was on the right path."