MUMBAI: England all-rounder Sam Curran expressed his remorse for the people who are affected by the ongoing war in West Asia, but reiterated that the team’s focus remains on the ICC T20 World Cup semifinal against India in Mumbai on Thursday.
Asked whether the ongoing war between USA-Israel and Iran in West Asia has been on the players' minds — especially with flight routes back to England affected — Curran said they are focused on Thursday night at the moment. “Obviously, extremely sorry for everyone who's been affected by what's been going on around the world, and I guess right now we're focused on Thursday night, and I guess we'll see what happens post that,” Curran said in a press conference on Tuesday at the Wankhede Stadium.
In what will be a repeat of the 2022 and 2024 editions, India and England will go up against each other in a T20 WC semifinal for the third consecutive time on Thursday. This time, both England and India have had different journeys to this point. Barring the one loss to West Indies, Harry Brook’s side has dominated the tournament both in India and Sri Lanka across Group stages and Super 8s. India, on the other hand, had managed to get across the line through Group Stage, but was rocked by the loss against South Africa before getting their act together to make it to the semifinal.
Curran, who has a wealth of experience playing across India thanks to the IPL, said that playing India in a semifinal is as good as it gets and hoped that the sell-out crowd at Wankhede can be kept quiet come Thursday. “Yeah, I guess it's a nice way to laugh about it, and I think I kind of fly to Mumbai from Sri Lanka, you kind of think about what you're dreaming of as a kid, what you would love to do and that's probably take on India in India. It's such an amazing experience they could probably start with the national anthems. It'll be incredibly loud and I think you've got to look at that as an exciting opportunity. I think if the crowd is silent England are probably going to be doing well so I guess that's our positive way of looking at it.
“I think the positive for us we played so much cricket in India as players and you just get so used to it and you can block it out and you take it in it's such a cool experience and so many young cricketers would love to be playing against India in the semi-finals so it's hopefully it's like I said, a nice silent stadium but I'm sure it's going to be very very loud and such a cool occasion and two great teams so I guess this is what the last four or five weeks have been building for and hopefully we can take one more step towards the final,” said Curran.
The all-rounder felt that the four best teams of the tournament are in the final, and overseas players have gained from the experience of playing in India. “This tournament, probably for us, has been a little bit of a challenge in terms of we've come across so many different conditions playing in Sri Lanka and obviously a couple games here and in Kolkata. I think we've adapted extremely well. I think I guess you'd probably say that the non-subcontinent teams have adapted really well to, I guess, the conditions thrown at them. All of us play a lot of cricket in India now, so we know how to play on these grounds, and we know what to expect and the IPL, no question, has helped a lot of that with the players. But yeah, I guess they're just really quality teams, South Africa, New Zealand, fantastic teams and we're a really good team as well and of course India, so I think they're probably the four best teams in the semi-finals and yeah, we see who takes that trophy,” said Curran.