{"id":211913,"date":"2025-10-19T22:59:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T22:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/211913\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T22:59:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T22:59:06","slug":"it-felt-like-a-long-time-sam-curran-rises-to-england-challenge-after-exile-england-cricket-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/211913\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It felt like a long time\u2019: Sam Curran rises to England challenge after exile | England cricket team"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a while, Sam Curran became used to hearing reasons from England\u2019s leadership as to why he was not in the team. On Saturday, after his unbeaten 49 in the rain-curtailed opening T20<\/a> against New Zealand, the message was very different: obviously he has been welcomed back, but now he is going nowhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was given very honest reasons for why he wasn\u2019t selected,\u201d the England captain, Harry Brook, said. \u201cHe went back, practised hard, and he\u2019s done really well. He\u2019s going to be around for a while, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n

Curran has played in only three of England\u2019s last 20 ODIs and earlier this year found himself out of the setup altogether, missing the five T20s in India that were played during the buildup to the Champions Trophy and the home series against West Indies in June. England\u2019s head coach, Brendon McCullum, challenged him to \u201ckeep banging the door down\u201d, and before the three T20s against South Africa that ended the domestic summer it finally fell off its hinges.<\/p>\n

\u201cI met up with all the people that I needed to,\u201d he said in Christchurch of meetings with McCullum and Rob Key, England\u2019s managing director of men\u2019s cricket. \u201cIt was quite refreshing. The message was just: \u2018Get runs, get wickets, and you\u2019ll make your way back in.\u2019 It was very clear what I needed to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past, sometimes you can not know where you\u2019re at,\u201d the 27-year-old added. \u201cI\u2019ve played from 19 years old for England<\/a>, I\u2019ve played a lot of cricket, and I probably learned a lot about myself being away from the team. I sit here now, and I\u2019m probably thankful for kind of a reset.\u201d<\/p>\n

The specific challenge was to bat his way back, that he would be recalled only if he could convince selectors that, irrespective of his bowling, he deserved a place in the top six. \u201cThe clarity of needing to get into the top six batters was great,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was nice that was my clear message, and I feel it was good for me to almost have a bit of time out, go back to where it all started.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went back to Surrey, captained and stuff like that,\u201d Curran added. \u201cWent back to coaches who know me. I\u2019ve experienced such highs in my career, and it was about just slowing down fractionally and getting back to enjoying it. And that\u2019s been a clear message now, that I earned my way back in. When I got on the flight, back on an England tour, that was a good feeling. It felt like quite a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year Curran won the Hundred for the third year in a row with Oval Invincibles<\/a>, captained Surrey in the T20 Blast for the first time (save for a three-game, four-day stint in 2023) and averaged 51.16 in six County Championship innings. On the subject of \u201cslowing down fractionally\u201d he also developed his notorious moon ball, an ultra-slow delivery that loops towards befuddled batters at barely 45mph.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just trying to do something different when I was away from the side,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s about being creative. It\u2019s trying to keep evolving. That was part of my time out the side, I was trying to reflect on where I can get better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sam Curran was named player of the tournament after helping England to victory in the 2022 T20 World Cup. Photograph: Cameron Spencer\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

With Jofra Archer, Ben Duckett and Jamie Smith all absent as they seek to build gently towards the Ashes, some players currently involved in New Zealand might find they have only loose grips on their places. This has been England\u2019s year of second chances, though, with other beneficiaries including Tom Banton and Liam Dawson \u2013 recalled after absences that had stretched to around three years \u2013 and with Zak Crawley on the verge of a first international white-ball appearance for two years.<\/p>\n

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It is not the first shared experience for Crawley, Banton and Curran, who were all born in 1998 and have been coming up against each other since the trio played in the Under-15 County Cup in 2013, the year after Curran moved to England from Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been non-stop probably since 17 years old. I feel I\u2019ve learned a lot,\u201d Curran said. \u201cA lot of us have talked about that. In our group, if I talk to Tom Banton and all these guys, we\u2019ve played together since, like, 17 or 18, so we\u2019ve been in and out. Hopefully we can now try to push this group forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Curran\u2019s winter started with a streaky but compelling knock before the drizzle fell at Hagley Oval \u2013 an innings in which the butterfingered Jacob Duffy and Tim Robinson both demonstrated he is not exactly undroppable. It is due to end with the 2026 T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka, where Curran will try to repeat his success at the 2022 edition, which he ended with not only a winner\u2019s medal<\/a> but the player of the tournament trophy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely the highlight,\u201d he says of that success in Australia. \u201cThere\u2019s a few guys in this team who were there, and I guess there\u2019s a drive to do it again. That\u2019s the pinnacle, winning World Cups for your country. I guess on tough days you look at that as your lift-me-up. It\u2019s all building towards trying to do that again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For a while, Sam Curran became used to hearing reasons from England\u2019s leadership as to why he was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-211913","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-cricket","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}