sport news Injured England seamer Topley blasts unsafe 'Toblerones' that wrecked his World ... trends now

sport news Injured England seamer Topley blasts unsafe 'Toblerones' that wrecked his World ... trends now
sport news Injured England seamer Topley blasts unsafe 'Toblerones' that wrecked his World ... trends now

sport news Injured England seamer Topley blasts unsafe 'Toblerones' that wrecked his World ... trends now

Reece Topley had a special reason to cheer England on in their decisive victory over New Zealand at the Gabba, the ground where his World Cup dream came to a shuddering halt.

‘What happened to me will be a bit easier to take if the boys go on to win the trophy,’ says the man who was supposed to spearhead England’s World Cup attack here. ‘It would mean I wasn’t missed. I’d love to watch them go all the way.’

Topley wasn’t meant to be watching the Twenty20 World Cup on TV at home in London. He had battled more adversity than most players suffer in a lifetime, overcoming four stress fractures of the back in five years, to become one of England’s most important white-ball bowlers.

England seamer Reece Topley was ruled out of the T20 World Cup by a serious ankle injury

England seamer Reece Topley was ruled out of the T20 World Cup by a serious ankle injury

This was going to be the World Cup when all his hard work was finally rewarded with a pivotal role for Jos Buttler’s contenders. Then it all went wrong during catching practice ahead of a warm-up match in Brisbane that England did not even want to play.

‘I was sprinting as fast as I could around the boundary and I leapt on to my left foot to practise saves and my studs got stuck in the plastic coating on the marker,’ Topley tells Sportsmail. ‘I turned my ankle and landed on the side of my shoe even though I was upright.

‘I ruptured all my ligaments on that outside part of my ankle and tore some muscles around it as well. It went so far that those muscles took a bit of a battering.’

Topley, 28, knew something was badly wrong. ‘There was a little bit of shock,’ he says. ‘The physio and doctor came over and I said, “It’s quite bad”. I wasn’t screaming in pain. I just calmly said it’s quite serious but I knew I wouldn’t be playing for at least a month.

The 28-year-old was going to have a pivotal role for Jos Buttler¿s World Cup contenders

The 28-year-old was going to have a pivotal role for Jos Buttler’s World Cup contenders

‘I was running too fast and the last thing I remembered as I was tumbling was seeing the sole of my shoe almost facing me. It was hazy and it all happened so fast but that was the picture I had in my mind. I just sat there thinking, “I’m cooked”. The way it happened there was no chance I hadn’t caused damage.’

That damage would almost certainly not have been as bad, of course, had Topley not tripped on one of the 20 centimetre-high ‘Toblerone’ boundary markers at this tournament that are crammed full of ICC advertising. It was the sheer size of the marker that made the fall so serious.

Topley is forthright on the

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