Chris Woakes has said that fast bowlers will ideally need two weeks to build up match fitness ahead of a Test match, should international cricket resume this summer.

No professional cricket is set to take place in the UK until at least May 28 and England’s first Test of the summer, currently scheduled to commence on June 4th against West Indies, is looking increasingly likely to be pushed back in the coming weeks. Other than working on their fitness at homes, it’s difficult for players to practice the technical sides of their game and keep match fit for the moment cricket resumes.

Today, Woakes said that bowlers would ideally have a two to three week period where they could practice their bowling and regain match fitness ahead of a potential first Test of the summer.

“It’s going to be tricky because usually leading into a Test match you like to probably have two or three Championship games under your belt,” said Woakes. “But in the near future if we’re likely to play any cricket that’s probably going to be unlikely and hard to get that in. So I think it’s going to be more of a case of how much load we can actually get into us as bowlers.

“We’ll have to see guys back and with overs in their legs. At the minute we don’t know what that looks like but I think ideally, we’d want a three-week block to get overs in your legs to be able to back up a 20-over day in a Test match. But again that might not be possible either. So I think two weeks would probably be the minimum we could have as bowlers to be able to get some form of load into the bodies before having to steam in.”