England's rising star Sam Curran: I love it when the whole world is watching

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
Curran, named in the squad for the Ireland series, wants the Test team to take inspiration from the 50-over side.
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Will Macpherson21 January 2019

Sam Curran made his England Test debut two days before turning 20, on June 1, 2018. He has since achieved things normal 20-year-olds simply do not.

He won man of the series in his first full campaign (a 4-1 win over Virat Kohli’s world No1-ranked India, no less). He was victorious in his first seven Tests, making six telling contributions with his roistering batting and four with his arcing left-arm swing. That earned him a prized England central contract.

At Surrey he won the County Championship with his brother, Tom, and boys he had played with for close to a decade, and dashed to Worcester to celebrate despite his England commitments ruling him out of the title-sealing match.

He played an ODI with that same brother (a third, Ben, plays for Northamptonshire). And he became, at £800,000 to Kings XI Punjab, the highest-selling overseas player in the IPL auction. For the final few who did not know, that deal confirmed Curran’s status among the hottest cricketing properties on the planet.

At Christmas, between England’s tours of Sri Lanka and the Caribbean (where he is set to play in Wednesday’s First Test and could take the new ball), Curran was able to pause for a moment to digest a remarkable few months. “You don’t get much time to reflect,” he says. “But I’ve been able to catch my breath.”

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When articulating these assessments, three aspects of Curran’s personality shine through: his fierce competitiveness; that he sees the greatest moments as those which are shared; and that his boyish looks belie a bloody mind. It is clear that the two moments he values most are playing with his brother and featuring in Alastair Cook’s final Test.

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“We [Tom, below right, and I] have wanted to do that for so many years and hopefully it becomes more of a regular fixture, and we can get a win together, too,” he says of the Fifth ODI in Sri Lanka in October, in which England were thrashed with the series already won. Tom is a regular in white-ball squads, Sam his red-ball equivalent.

“The other highlight was The Oval, on my homeground. Seeing how the older guys reacted to Cooky, how emotional they were, that really struck home what it means to play for England.”

It is easy to see how Curran ended up an all-rounder. He is fearless; he says the only real surprise over the past year are the moments in which he has made his runs. “It’s been nice to know I’ve got runs when the team has needed them,” he says. Those who knew his late father Kevin, the Zimbabwe and Northants all-rounder who died when Sam was 14, will be less surprised by his spirit.

Curran has another great all-rounder’s quality: curiosity. The questions never stop — and never stop being relevant. His early success means there is much interest about the player he might become and — while he thinks he has the answer — he is unbothered about what others think. Certainly those who work with him are happy for him to keep ploughing ahead — England do not believe he needs to put on pace to be a potent Test bowler — and think he will blossom into a middle-order batsman.

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“I think it’d be a bit boring if I did just one thing,” he says. “I love being in the game, I love being involved.

“People are always going to have their opinions over what I am going to be, or not be. I don’t think about it. I bat and try to be like an opening batsman. And I bowl and try to be like an opening bowler. If I get picked here [against the West Indies] I’m going to bat eight, nine. I wouldn’t change the way I play at No3 or No8. It’s the same with the ball.

“People say ‘he’s this, this is what’s he going to turn into’. Everyone will have their opinion. For me, I think I’ll be more of a batter at five or six who does what [Ben] Stokes does — then try to swing the ball. I will keep trying to improve. That’s why while Jimmy [Anderson] is here he’s a great man to work with.”

This year is perhaps even more exciting for Curran than 2018. Kings XI beat off competition from Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bangalore and Delhi Capitals for his services at the IPL auction.

Curran is presented with The Peter Wilson Trophy - International Newcommer Award by Alec Stewart during The SJA British Sports Awards 2018
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He adds: “There’s no hiding, the whole world’s watching. That’s what I like. I’m a really competitive guy, to play against the big boys, Kohli, [AB] de Villiers, that will be pretty good fun.”

Before then, Curran is concentrating on England. “The Ashes [in August] is the main one I want to be involved in,” he says. “But that’s a long way away. I want to be in the World Cup squad but I also want to be in the team this week.

“That’s what everyone is trying to do in a huge year like this, take one step at a time. I just want to keep changing games of cricket.”

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