Tom Curran’s bowling figures – 1 for 55 in four overs – in Friday night’s game against South Africa were the sixth-most expensive in England’s T20I history. But at least none of the five men above him in that list had to walk off alongside their grinning brother after he had taken three cheap wickets.
“Tom’s very competitive and is a relaxed guy, so he’ll move on pretty quickly,” Sam said after England’s five-wicket win. “T20 is a very strange game. You can bowl well and still get hit for a lot of runs, and you can bowl badly and get loads of wickets.”
But in truth, Sam bowled well, and Tom bowled poorly. While Sam managed to disguise his variations, change his lengths and nail a hard length, Tom was taken to pieces in his second over by Faf du Plessis and ended up leaking 24 runs as he strayed into the slot.
The upshot is that if England decide to inject Mark Wood’s pace in Sunday’s…