Sam Curran, who last played for England in November last year against the West Indies, earned his first call-up with Brendon McCullum as the head coach, not having played a Test match for four years. Curran returned to England’s T20 squad after a sensational Hundred for the Oval Invincibles.
England all-rounder Sam Curran was rewarded for his blockbuster campaign in the Hundred for the three-time champions Oval Invincibles, scoring 238 runs, while also taking 12 wickets (joint-second highest) as he made a comeback to the national team for the first time since the West Indies series last year. This was Curran’s first call-up with McCullum as a head coach, having not been part of the Test side since 2021 and playing white-ball cricket for the first time in eight months.
McCullum revealed that he had honest conversations with Curran ahead of the start of the English summer as to where he wanted him to be in terms of level of performance, who got fame and played at the top level very early in his career and just needed him not to leave any other option with the coach and selectors apart from selecting him.
“The message to Sam was that a lot’s come to you quickly and you’ve had a lot of success and a lot of fame, and a lot of things have fallen your way,” McCullum was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo. “but, of late, your performance had just tailed off a bitโฆ With us resting both Jamie [Smith]ย and Ben [Duckett], it gives us the opportunity to bring Sam in and he’ll get his chance to bat in the top six.”
Duckett and Smith’s absence might help Tom Banton play all three games at the top of the order alongside Phil Salt while Sam Curran fills in that No 4 role, sandwiched between Jos Buttler and Jacob Bethell on the either side. McCullum said that the team management asked him to bang the door down of selection and Curran did exactly that.
“We sat down with him recently and asked him to be able to bang down the door, to be able to force his way into a position in the top six and with his bowling ability and his variation of being left-arm. He is an attractive resource. It was a matter of his performances getting back to where he needed to be and he was, quite honestly, he wasn’t necessarily a finished player yet. But he was determined to make sure that he had a long, sustainable career in international cricket. Fair play to Sam, he’s banged down the door in that role in franchise cricket,” McCullum told Sky Sports.
Curran was included in the T20 squad for both South Africa and Ireland series and with only six months left for the T20 World Cup, the 27-year-old will be keen to make himself irreplaceable in the T20 side.
England’s T20 squad for South Africa series: Harry Brook (c), Rehan Ahmed, Jofra Archer, Tom Banton, Jacob Bethell, Jos Buttler, Brydon Carse, Sam Curran, Liam Dawson, Will Jacks, Saqib Mahmood, Jamie Overton, Adil Rashid, Phil Salt, Luke Wood
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