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Robson Sharuko-Senior Sports Editor
THEY were the same opponents and, it was also the same month, when Sam Curran came of age, on the big stage of the Test scene, with a vintage all-round performance, which belied his tender age.
He was just 20.
Then, just like now, the Indians were in town.
Featuring in only his second Test, Sam made the difference, with a man-of-the-match all-round performance, as England completed a thrilling 31-run victory, at Edgbaston.
The former Zimbabwe schoolboy sensation took five wickets, four in the Indian first innings, and one in the visitors’ second innings, while scoring 87 runs, to emerge as the best player, in that battle.
It set the stage for England’s 4-1 series win and Curran was hailed as the next big thing, in world cricket.
Sam scored 272 runs, and took 11 wickets, on his way to be named man-of-the-series.
He also became the youngest Englishman, in a century, to be named one of Wisden’s five Cricketers of the Year, sharing the honour with legendary Indian skipper, Virat Kohli, was named the leading cricketer in the world.
With all the media spotlight on him, after his starring role, in the first Test, at Edgbaston, three years ago, the all-rounder revealed how the experience of losing his father Kevin, at a young age, helped transform him into a tough competitor.
A genuine all-rounder, Kevin was part of the pioneer cricketers, who represented this country, at its maiden appearance at the ICC Cricket World Cup, in England, in 1983.
His 70-run partnership with captain Duncan Fletcher helped Zimbabwe script one of the biggest upsets, in the ICC Cricket World Cup history, with a stunning 13-run victory.
He coached the Chevrons and was the head of the Zimbabwe Cricket Academy when he collapsed, and died, at the age of 53, on October 10, 2012.
A year earlier, his son, Sam, won the 2011 CBZ Bank’s Best Zimbabwean Schools Cricketer and Player of the Tournament, at the EJCCA Festival, in South Africa.
Sam was still a schoolboy, playing for the Zimbabwe Under-13 national team, back then but everything would change, a year later, with his father’s sudden death.
“I was still young when it did happen, but I’ve got a very strong family — both my brothers, we’re all very close, and my mum’s very supportive of all our cricket,’’ Sam told the media, after his starring role for England, at Edgbaston, three years ago.
“I think it made us stronger, as a family, and me stronger as a person.
“I do take that into my game. I just play naturally, and try to take as many chances as I can. I don’t really think about it too much, and that’s when I play my best cricket.’’ A few months, after his heroics in helping England thrash India in the Test series, introduced him to the world, Sam became the youngest bowler, to take a hat-trick, in an Indian Premier League match, in April 2019.
But, it’s a tough world, in the trenches of international cricket, at the very top levels of the game.
At Lord’s, the home of cricket, in his latest confrontation with the Indians, on English soil, Sam got a quick reminder of the brutality of this game, on Monday.
He was dismissed for a King Pair, quite a rare occurrence, in this game, as the rampant Indians roared back, from a perilous position, amid unrelenting drama, to win the second Test against England.
Now 23, Sam became only the fourth Englishman to fall victim to a King Pair and the first, to fall in such a fashion, in the 141 Tests, which have been played at Lord’s.
He was dismissed for a first ball duck, in the first innings and went that way again, in the second innings, as the Indians blew away all the hurdles, on their way to one of their greatest victories, as they won by 151 runs.
It meant Sam joined the likes of William Ettewell, the Englishman who was dismissed for a King Pair, at the Sydney Cricket Ground in 1892, against Australia.
Another Englishman, Erin Haynes, also fell to a King Pair, against South Africa, in Cape Town in 1906, before James Anderson, the English king of swing, also fell the same way, in 2016, against India.
England are also set for the most Test ducks, in a single year, during this campaign, beating the 54 ducks they recorded, in 16 Tests, in 1998.
Ironically, Sam set this sequence of ducks underway when he fell for a first ball duck in Galle, Sri Lanka, in January, and there have been 39 ducks, in 10 Tests, this year.
The miserable second innings, at Lord’s, also marked the fourth time, this year, when four English batsmen fell, without scoring, in the same innings.
Rory Burns has five ducks.
Ironically, in 2018, he was one of the five players who were named the Wisden Cricketers of the Year.
That year, for the fifth season in a row, he passed 1 000 first-class runs.
But, as Sam has since realised, this is a tough game which challenges its best players, just like its emerging stars, with each new assignment.
Online Reporter
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