The future beckons for Topley
Seventeen-year-old Reece Topley is leading wicket-taker in English first-class cricket this season
Akhila Ranganna
25-Feb-2013
Seventeen-year-old Reece Topley is leading wicket-taker in English first-class cricket this season. Though he has to go back to school - and, as he turned 17 only in February, he is not yet even in his second year of A-levels - Scyld Berry in the Sunday Telegraph reckons that school, after three consecutive matches in the first fortnight, is no bad place for Topley. He has to be allowed to grow in peace.
So the future beckons for Topley, and the present isn’t too bad either, as he bowls a full and old-fashioned length that draws batsmen into the drive, and the Tiflex ball that is used in the second division swings copiously. As he grows stronger, he can develop the plan B of banging it in and pushing the batsman back, as Voce and Sidebottom learned to do. And maybe go one better.
Akhila Ranganna is assistant editor (Audio) at ESPNcricinfo