A talented younger who has already played in a World Cup final
We could soon be hearing a lot more of batter Will Luxton, an exciting young player from Keighley who has captained Yorkshire’s Academy and also represented the England Under 19s in a World Cup final.
Right-hander Luxton, educated at Bradford Grammar School, skippered the county’s colts in 2021 before helping his country’s teenagers reach the U19 50-over final when they were beaten by India in the Caribbean at the start of 2022.
Luxton, soon turning 21, played seven times for Yorkshire’s first-team in the One-Day Cup in 2021, scoring 165 runs in six innings.
His standout innings was a superb 68 – he helped the Vikings recover from 69-6 – on debut against Northamptonshire at Scarborough in late July, a match that eventually ended up as a rainy No Result.
The following summer, in late July, Luxton bettered that in the same competition with an exhilarating 84 off 53 balls in a high-scoring victory over Northamptonshire at Yorkshire.
That innings came just a fortnight after Ottis Gibson had handed him a first-class debut in a Championship defeat against champions to be Surrey at Scarborough when he posted middle order scores of 31 and 14.
In 2023, he made his Vitality Blast debut, playing three matches in all, and in second-team cricket he shared a remarkable unbroken first-wicket stand of 257 with James Wharton in a second-team T20 friendly win over the South Asian Cricket Academy, hitting 104.
Tall and wiry with deceptive power, he is also an outstanding fielder.
UPDATED: Feb 2024.
