{"id":516365,"date":"2026-03-03T16:56:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T16:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/516365\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T16:56:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T16:56:14","slug":"sam-curran-insists-india-t20-world-cup-semi-final-holds-no-fear-for-england-england-cricket-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/516365\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Curran insists India T20 World Cup semi-final holds \u2018no fear\u2019 for England | England cricket team"},"content":{"rendered":"

England have pledged to go into Thursday\u2019s T20 World Cup<\/a> semi-final against India with no fear, with Sam Curran describing the fixture as \u201ca dream\u201d and \u201ca brilliant opportunity\u201d about which they are feeling \u201chugely confident\u201d.<\/p>\n

On the face of it the challenge England face is daunting. Though they won all three games in the Super 8 stage to ease into the semi-finals those matches were played in Sri Lanka, where they now have a 100% record in six outings this year. They have since returned to Mumbai, where they were so nearly beaten by Nepal<\/a> in their tournament opener and then actually beaten by West Indies<\/a>, and where they can expect nothing but hostility from a sold-out crowd of 33,000.<\/p>\n

Though scoring rates here in this tournament have been relatively modest, across the last three seasons of the Indian Premier League the Wankhede has been the competition\u2019s highest-scoring ground, with an average of 9.89 runs scored per over. India\u2019s team is packed with players who have extensive experience here including their captain, Suryakumar Yadav, the highest scorer on the ground in that time with 888 runs in 20 innings at the extraordinary average of 63.42, and his Mumbai Indians teammate Jasprit Bumrah, who with 23 wickets at 11.52 and an economy of 5.61 does not so much stand out from other bowlers as exist in a different category entirely of his own. England played India here as recently as last February: the opener Abhishek Sharma scored a ludicrous 135 off 54<\/a>, England were bowled out in just over 10 overs and the winning margin was 150, making it the worst T20 defeat in England\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

But despite all of this, and the fact that England are yet to produce a truly authoritative display in this tournament, their coach-and-captain combo of Brendon McCullum and Harry Brook have managed to locate bright sides to look on, such as redefining some of their poor performances as morale-boosting evidence that they can, in Curran\u2019s words, \u201cwin games from scenarios that we probably shouldn\u2019t\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cBaz and Brooky are very positive people and they\u2019re just keeping the group nice and calm,\u201d Curran said. \u201cThese games are what we dream of. It\u2019s such a cool experience. It\u2019s kind of, how exciting to play India in the semi-final. Everybody knows how we\u2019re going to play them. They know how we\u2019re going to attack them.\u201d<\/p>\n

England\u2019s Sam Curran plays a shot against New Zealand in Colombo. Photograph: Eranga Jayawardena\/AP<\/p>\n

The game will be played on the same Wankhede pitch \u2013 No 7 \u2013 that was used when England played West Indies, a game in which spinners thrived and batters largely didn\u2019t. Unsurprisingly the same was true when it was used again the following day for Nepal\u2019s defeat by Italy. But three weeks have passed since then, and having had a first look during Tuesday\u2019s training session England are expecting it to behave very differently now.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d be very surprised if it\u2019s a low-scoring, turning pitch,\u201d Curran said. \u201cSri Lanka suited the spinners a lot more, so I took a back seat a little bit with the ball. I presume I\u2019ll be involved a lot more with the ball, and all our seamers will be a bit more involved. I\u2019m excited for that challenge. It\u2019s normally a pretty good wicket and it\u2019s a small ground so I\u2019d expect a really high-scoring game. India are a quality side but we\u2019ve played a lot of cricket here and we\u2019re not fearing anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

England silenced a large and fervent crowd during their victory over Sri Lanka<\/a> in Pallekele, and their first task on Thursday will again be to gain the upper hand and quieten the throng.<\/p>\n

\u201cFlying to Mumbai you think about your dreams as a kid, and it\u2019d probably be taking on India in India,\u201d Curran said. \u201cIt\u2019s such an amazing experience. It will be incredibly loud and you\u2019ve got to look at that as an exciting opportunity. If the crowd are silent, England are probably going to be doing well. That\u2019s our positive way of looking at it. The positive for us is we\u2019ve played so much cricket in India as players and you just get so used to it you can block it out.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a very loud and cool occasion. This is what the last four or five weeks have been building for and hopefully we can take one more step. We\u2019re hugely confident. There\u2019s going to be no secrets in terms of what each team will throw at each other, it\u2019s just on the night who handles the occasion and adapts to the conditions the quickest. It\u2019s one of those nights where you go out and give it everything and hope that it\u2019s enough.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England have pledged to go into Thursday\u2019s T20 World Cup semi-final against India with no fear, with Sam…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-516365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}