England flirted with one of the big T20 World Cup upsets in Mumbai before starting their campaign with a win against Nepal by four points. Although they did not lose the match, Sam Curran insisted they had lost any sense of complacency.
“We’ll take those two points and be very confident because it wouldn’t have been a nice dressing room tonight,” said Curran, who conceded just five points in the final to decide the match.
“I’ve played a lot of T20 cricket. When you win the best, those are actually the ones that give you a little boost and a smile on your face.
“The Associated Nations are getting so much better. Some of the shots in the last few overs… it’s serious stuff. You can’t underestimate these guys anymore.”
Will Jacks said of Curran: “He won that game for us. It was ebb and flow all the way. I thought it was almost lost with six balls to go. Winning ugly is a great trait. It’s incredibly difficult to replicate that experience and a game like today where we possibly didn’t expect it to go until the last ball, and it has.”
“If we find ourselves in that situation in the rest of the tournament, which we certainly will at some point, we can look back on this experience and take it with us.”
England next play the West Indies on Wednesday, but in the moments before delivering the crucial win over Curran he was already thinking about their second opponent, specifically Carlos Brathwaite’s four consecutive sixes against Ben Stokes to settle the 2016 World Cup final in their favor.
“I thought strangely of the 2016 final when Carlos got Stokesy,” Curran said. “I thought, ‘Well, if I execute, he won’t hit me for six hours.’ I just looked at his feet and was happily executed. Those games are great to win, but wow, it would have been horrible to lose.”
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