For so long, the debate over Sam Curran’s inclusion in England sides across the formats has been marketed as one of intangibles, a matter not just of runs, wickets and averages, but of happy knacks, moments seized and fiery, juvenile spirit.
A television segment during the final Test of the summer against South Africa offered reassurance that, behind-closed-doors at least, more is being done to try to quantify the unquantifiable. Curran’s 66 per cent win ratio for England in red-ball cricket was highlighted by the ECB’s head of performance, Mo Bobat, even if the statistic alone does little to explain the hows or whys.
In T20s, however, over the past month Curran has built a case that, by any measure, has him bang in contention for a place in England’s best XI heading into next Saturday’s World Cup opener against Afghanistan.
England arrived in Australia last week still with a couple of nagging selection issues and Alex Hales swiftly set about resolving the headline one, the recalled opener’s blistering 84 in Sunday’s first T20 against the hosts nailing down his place alongside captain Jos Buttler at the top of the order, after Phil Salt threatened a late charge on the shirt in Pakistan.
But Curran’s two-for-35 in a high-scoring contest may just have delivered a more emphatic answer to the question of who completes their strongest line-up than England’s leadership were expecting, even this close to the start of the tournament.
Provided Liam Livingstone is fit (he is targeting the final warm-up against Pakistan next Monday for his comeback from an ankle injury), England are expected to lean towards a batting-heavy first XI, with either Livingstone or Moeen Ali carded as low as No7 and Harry Brook a lock at No5 after his breakthrough tour in Pakistan. In turn, Reece Topley, Adil Rashid and Mark Wood look certainties, for all the latter may need to be managed, leaving one spot up for grabs.
The tactical shift might have doomed Curran, whose record with the bat has seen him bumped way up the order for Surrey and Oval Invincibles this summer but could have been a secondary consideration at No8, an unnecessary - and potentially unused - luxury, unjustified at the expense of a more traditionally frontline bowler.
After all, a side with Chris Woakes at No8 would not exactly lack batting depth, while Chris Jordan might still, in a roundabout way, have reason to feel the incumbent, having returned to form this summer after a couple of years of decline - headlined by a night to forget in last year’s World Cup semi-final defeat to New Zealand - before missing Pakistan through injury.
Both are experienced heads in a dressing room that has suddenly lost several of them, while Curran has played a considerable amount of cricket in the pressure environment of the IPL but never at an international tournament. Crucially, Jordan is by some margin the most established specialist in an area where England’s cupboard has been most damagingly bare: bowling at the death.
Yesterday, however, it was Curran’s variations at the back end of the innings that proved so effective as he comfortably defended 16 off the final over, picking up a couple of wickets in the process, to see England home to an eight-run victory.
It was not a one-off: before Perth came Pakistan, and a lengthy, competitive series in which Curran excelled with the ball (seven wickets at less than 25 and an economy of 7.47) but batted only twice in six matches.
Those numbers matter, not only because they offer more substance than that cliched flair for Making Things Happen (though, clearly, that remains in tact), but also because they provide hard evidence of Curran’s growing value even when just one of two strong suits comes into play.
Arriving in Australia primed has been Curran’s No1 priority from an England perspective this year, his workload managed across the summer following the back injury that ruled him out of last year’s equivalent and a Test recall not considered despite a raft of other seam absentees, though he may get one for the tour of Pakistan in December.
For now, there is a World Cup - Curran’s first - to contend with and less than a fortnight out, he could not have done much more to push his case for inclusion.
