Will Young Carves Place in New Zealand Team
“Will Young was playing senior team cricket at 19 but it is only at 30 that he’s carved his place in the national team. In all that time, he’s never given up,” Alagappan Muthu and Deivarayan Muthu write in a profile of the “prodigy” for ESPN Cricinfo.
“There’s good luck. There’s bad luck. And then there’s what Young has, where everything seems to be coming together just so it can unravel spectacularly. Picture winning the lottery, except on the way to collect the money, you get hit by lightning.
“Within New Zealand, there’s always been hype around him. He was captain of their Under-19 team at the World Cup in 2012, where they made it to the semi-finals. He was already playing first-class cricket by then, a teenager spending time on the field with veterans like Matthew Sinclair, Chris Martin and Daryl Tuffey. He went on to lead Central Districts to the one-day Ford Trophy and four-day Plunket Shield titles.
“Prodigies don’t usually have to wait until they’re 30 to carve a place for themselves. But that’s been Young’s lot. He’s persevered through all of that and proven once and for all that where there’s a Will, there’s a way.”
Original article by Alagappan Muthu and Deivarayan Muthu, ESPN Cricinfo, October 11, 2023.
