Sam Curran believes England are ready and raring to go for the T20 World Cup despite a freak injury which has left Reece Topley a doubt ahead of their first match.
Topley rolled his left ankle on a piece of advertisement foam on the boundary during catching drills in Brisbane on Monday, so he did not feature in their final warm-up against Pakistan.
England announced the left-arm seamer ‘will be assessed throughout this week’ and are hopeful of a swift recovery, but they do have Tymal Mills and Richard Gleeson on stand-by.
It is an unwanted headache for England as they travel to Perth to take on Afghanistan on Saturday, with Topley becoming an increasingly dependable figure since the turn of the year.
David Willey and Curran are England’s other left-armers so they are unlikely this weekend to risk Topley, who has overcome multiple stress fractures in his back during his career.
Curran is expected to be in England’s XI against Afghanistan, irrespective of whether Topley features, and believes they are on the right track after an improvement in results recently following a disappointing summer.
England recorded a 4-3 win in Pakistan and then overcame the same opponents by six wickets in a low-key practice match on Monday, having also beaten World Cup hosts and defending champions Australia 2-0.
‘We’re definitely ready now,’ Curran said. ‘We’re feeling like we’re almost… not peaking, but we’re playing good cricket, (as shown in winning series against) Pakistan and Australia, then this game. We’re really excited. Hopefully with a couple of good training sessions in Perth, come the weekend we’ll be good.’
Curran, who was ruled out of last year’s World Cup with a stress fracture in his lower back, demonstrated his all-round ability with an unbeaten 33 off 14 balls against Pakistan on Monday.
Moved up to sixth in the order, he showed he is quite adept at the finishing role with a cluster of boundaries and revealed he takes his cues from those above him.
‘Guys like Moeen (Ali), (Liam) Livingstone, Harry Brook are experienced in that middle-over phase so they help me through it. You see the way Livi plays, he knows his role, he knows he’s going to come in and be attacking.’
Watt hoping for chance at second best
Mark Watt would relish a showdown with England next week as Scotland’s slow left-armer insists his side have ‘unfinished business’ at the T20 World Cup.
Scotland stunned two-time champions West Indies in their opener and went into this morning’s game with Ireland knowing a win will all but guarantee progress from their first-round group.
If Scotland miss out on top spot, the consolation in being runners-up is they would go into England’s Super 12s group and a battle of Britain would take place a week today at the 100,000-capacity MCG. Watt said: ‘I’d love that. I didn’t know that was the case, so yeah, I’ll take second now.’
Scotland shocked many by clearing the first hurdle last year before losing every game at the Super 12s stage and Watt is keen to correct the record. ‘I’d love to be able to replicate what we did last year and get through to the proper group stages,’ he said. ‘We’ve got unfinished business at this tournament. We know last year we didn’t play our best game at all. We’ve still not done that.
‘Even though we’ve just beaten the West Indies, we haven’t played our best cricket yet, and we’ve got one to prove. That’s kind of the main focus just now.’
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