By Alex Smith

REECE Topley is ready to put his injury nightmare behind him by playing his first first-team game for nearly a year.

Hampshire start their one-day season against Sussex at Hove this morning and limited-overs specialist Topley is expected to put four serious injuries behind him by playing his first game for the county since last July.

The left-arm bowler has been beset by hand, shoulder and a stress fractures of the back since signing from Essex two years ago.

Now after 16 appearances in all cricket in his first two seasons with the county, in which he has been limited to 113 overs, Topley is ready for a fresh start, having signed a white-ball contract in February so he can focus on his rehabilitation in the shorter forms of the game.

“I’m looking after the short term,” said the 24 year-old.

“I’ll get through to the end of August and then look forward.”

“Sometimes I have to level myself and think baby steps because I have been out for such a long time and the season is quite long.

“My ideal season would be to be relatively pain free when I am playing and enjoying every game.

“I don’t want to think too far ahead.

“Last year what went wrong was having too many goals. I’ve never really had goals in the past I just played.

“That is what I want to go back to – just playing cricket for what it is; enjoy being out there with team-mates, enjoy travelling up and down the country and going to all these places.

“There is so much more to being a cricketer than actually playing cricket.

“You just have to enjoy yourself because I haven’t really enjoyed cricket with all the injuries and the pain I have been in over the last two years.

“I just want to go back to basics and have fun.”

Topley has won 16 white-ball caps for England, including ten in the 50-over format.

After figures of 6-1-28-1 and 8-0-46-1 in Second XI Trophy matches against Sussex and Kent earlier this month, he is ready for the next stage of his comeback at Hove today.

“I’ve visualised it a lot,” continued Topley, who took 4-68 against Middlesex in last season’s One-Day Cup and has a career record of 78 List A wickets at 24.8 apiece.

“You find yourself daydreaming thinking back to those times when I have bowled well in those periods.

“You then try to replicate it at Hove in your head.

“I think about it a lot. It isn’t a nervous thought, it is something that excites me.

“I don’t really think about the outcome but more the feeling of the ball coming out with the line and the swing and the timing of everything.

“I am really looking forward to the first powerplay as it is a good opportunity to take wickets.

“The first five overs will be exciting for me, it is something I do quite well.

“I have been playing that period over in my head and how it is going to go and hopefully it comes to fruition.”

Topley admits misses playing red-ball cricket, but insists the decision not to is the right one.

He said: “It seemed like the most logical and the best way for me to almost have a full run in a full campaign rather than play a part in all of them.

“Hopefully I can have a decent run.

“It is a form where I have had success in in the past but red-ball cricket is just as enjoyable and I wish I was playing that.

“I can’t think too much about it as that isn’t the circumstance that I find myself in.

“I find myself in a situation where, not my choice, I can only play white-ball cricket.

“It’s unfortunate that the injuries happened last year, and I obviously don’t want them to happen, but I can’t look back and say ‘what if this’ or ‘what if that’ because there was nothing to pick up on.”

Mason Crane is available for his first game of the season against his former county today.

The England leg-spinner has recovered from his back injury and is joined in the squad by his spin twin Brad Taylor, who made 182 and took three wickets in this week’s Second Eleven Championship win against Kent .

But Kyle Abbott (ankle), Liam Dawson (finger) and Sam Northeast (finger) are unavailable.

Hampshire (from): Weatherley, Alsop, Vince, Amla, Rossouw, McManus, Taylor, Berg, Wood, Topley, Edwards, Wheal, Crane, Sole, Adams.