England pacer Mark Wood has showered praise on Rohit Sharma and said it is tough to bowl ton Rohit Sharma in any conditions. Rohit Sharma has amassed 369 runs in eight innings, including a match-winning century at the Oval Test in the ongoing five-match Test series.

“Rohit Sharma is brilliant, he is tough to bowl at in any conditions,” Wood told reporters in the virtual press conference.

“KL Rahul, I have been really impressed with him, he has left the bowl really well early on and played really solitary and when he gets in, he has played quite beautifully. The openers are two big wickets for us,” said Wood.

“Then you have got (Cheteshwar) Pujara, (Virat) Kohli, I mean Kohli is one of the toughest players that I have bowled at in any format, so it is world class line-up, but if you don’t believe in yourself, if you don’t believe you can get them out then there is no point in playing.

The Indian team is 2-1 ahead in the five-match series, having won the second and fourth Tests at Lords and the Oval by 151 and 157 runs respectively. The hosts defeated the Virat Kohli-led side in the third game at Leeds by an innings and 76 runs.

The fifth and final Test of the series will be played from September 10 to 14.

The 31-year-old speedster said England have plans and back-up plans for each opposition batsman.

“We believe in ourself as a group, we have plans for each batsman, we have back-up plans, sometimes it works, sometimes they don”t. But when you have such a good sort of batting line up to come up against, you have to be right on the money, otherwise they punish you,” said Wood.

The right-arm pacer also lavished praise on the Indian pace bowlers saying he has immense respect for them.

“I think, every-team has quality pacers, this is national cricket, this is not (some) sort of school or club cricket. Every team has fantastic bowlers and I respect this Indian pace attack immensely,” said Wood.

“I think it is highly skilled, it has got pace, they are all slightly different, with different angles, different actions. It is great to watch, I mean, it is not great to face as a batsman, but as an opposition player, you can get a huge respect.

“And (Mohammed) Shami, I have been hugely impressed with him throughout the series. His skill level, his accuracy and it has been tough for batsmen of both sides. It is a good bowling line up but we recognise that we will have to combat as best we can.”

Wood, who has 64 wickets in 21 Tests, said that the series has been a highly-contested one and his team ‘messed up’ on the last day at Lords but he was optimistic that the hosts will bounce back.

“Although, we are losing these games, it is the fine margins when you come up against good batsmen, you are going to really make it count and that is what we are trying to do this game, bounce back, put in a really good performance and we hope we can do the same again,” he said.