Chris Woakes is aiming to bowl himself into contention for this summer’s Ashes but believes he would be in “cuckooland” to think he can walk straight back into the Test side after a year away.
Woakes won the last of his 45 caps in the West Indies in March 2022, the series before the team’s remarkable reinvention under Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum, before missing the entire 2022 campaign with a collection of injuries picked up over the course of a long and taxing winter.
