England international Reece Topley will bowl his first red ball in anger since July 2015 in Hampshire’s Specsavers County Championship First Division clash with Yorkshire, which started this morning.

The Ipswich-born 23-year-old failed to bowl a ball for Hampshire last season, having joined them from Essex in the close season, but it is the XI that is currently batting on the south coast.

Topley endured a devastating 2016 campaign, suffering a broken hand on his Hampshire debut while batting against Warwickshire, before sustaining a partial stress fracture in his back which ruled him out for the rest of the campaign. Then, in January, he underwent a shoulder operation after picking up a training injury.

The ex-Royal Hospital School pupil’s last bowled at the 2016 T20 World Cup against South Africa.