Born in Chelsea, London, Issy Wong is one of the true rising talents in British cricket. Her father’s side of the family is of Chinese descent and her two great uncles played internationally for Hong Kong, so it’s clear that some of that cricket prowess runs in the blood. We’ve rounded up all of the information that you could possibly want to know about this brilliant young cricketer.
Wong is already known for her incredible ambition. She is set on becoming the first woman to bowl in excess of 80 miles per hour. She already regularly achieves fast bowls of more than 70, so it looks like her goal could be well within the achievable range fairly soon in her career. Although Wong has not yet played internationally for the England squad she is certainly one to look out for this year. With her impressive domestic performances, bookmakers will be quick to shorten odds if she makes the team. Looking for a free bet might be the best way to secure good value if you want to bet on Issy having a winning international debut.
Where Issy has already made her mark is on the Domestic circuit. She began her cricketing career at school in Warwickshire where she was the first female ever to be chosen for the first team at Shrewsbury School. From her school days, she was encouraged by her coach to go on and join a local team. She pitched up at Knowle and Dorridge and the team immediately recognized her talent and took her on. This meant that at the age of just 11, Issy was already representing her county.
Issy flew through the rest of her education, achieving top grades right up to A-level. Despite her academic prowess, cricket was always her primary focus. Warwickshire was the first professional club that took her on and she repaid them handsomely. During the 2019 season, she helped take the Under Seventeen’s team to a national victory and in that same year also played for the senior team. The seniors also secured the Women’s 2020 Cup. Not a bad first professional season!
2020 was her second professional season where she was selected to play for Central Sparks. This was a serious achievement as there’s a great deal of talent in the young cricket world today. She joined the team in the hunt for the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy and, although she was unable to play as often as she would like during the tournament, thanks to her International commitments, she helped the team to several victories.
During this tournament, she took three wickets and was named player of the match, despite being one of the youngest players to appear in the whole tournament. She also spent time playing for the West Midlands Regional Hub and the Birmingham Phoenix during this year, but sadly due to cancellations was not able to kick off her second professional season as she no doubt would have wanted to.
The 2021 season looks as though it will be the most exciting one yet for Issy. She has been retained by Birmingham Phoenix for the season and should get to make more appearances than ever before.
Outside of cricket, Wong has an unusual party trick. She was spotted by cameras doing it at the 2017 Women’s Cricket World Cup Final, at which she was a spectator. During the match, she was caught solving a Rubix cube. During a later interview, she was asked about it and she explained in such a way that it became immediately clear that her competitive streak extends to just about everything in life. She explains that when she was still at school, she and a friend would walk to class together and he could solve a Rubix Cube in the time it took them to get there. Seeing this trick, Issy asked him to teach her. Before long she was solving the cube pretty reliably, but she knew that she was capable of doing it faster. She has spent a fair bit of her downtime learning algorithms to get the speed of her Rubix Cube solving down and is working on solving consistently below fifteen seconds at the moment. Having seen the tenacity with which she’s chasing the over 80 miles per hour target, we’ve no doubt she’ll be solving that Rubix Cube in under fifteen seconds very soon.
