Curran was the final piece of a puzzle

Melbourne – In Player-of-theTournament Sam Curran, and his bowling at the death, England found the final piece of the jigsaw to turn Jos Buttler’s side into Twenty20 world champions.

The quietly spoken Curran bookended England’s triumphant tournament in Australia with two of the finest spells seen in a T20 World Cup.

He took 5/10 in 3.4 overs to bowl out Afghanistan for 112 in the opening Super-12 match and then 3/12 from four overs in the final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, including the key wickets of Mohammad Rizwan and Shan Masood, to keep Pakistan down to 137/8.

The latter saw him awarded Player-of-the-Match in the final, a year after he had been a spectator as England’s Adil Rashid, Chris Jordan and Chris Woakes were smashed for 57 runs in the last three overs of a T20 World Cup semifinal to hand New Zealand victory.

And in 2016, he had been a teenager watching on TV when Ben Stokes failed to shackle Carlos Brathwaite, who bludgeoned four successive sixes in the final over in Kolkata to give West Indies their second T20 World Cup triumph.

Now his laser-accurate leftarm swing, together with a deceptively quick shorter ball, cutters and clever changes of pace, has been the answer to England’s bowling prayers.

“To be honest, I am a little bit lost for words, it has been a great tournament,” Curran said as he picked up his awards after taking 13 wickets overall.

“First time for me in a World Cup and we have won it. I wanted to be adaptable coming into the tournament.

“I haven’t bowled much at the death before and that is one area I want to keep improving.”

Curran comes from a family of cricketers. His late father Kevin was a Zimbabwean international all-rounder in the 1980s who played for Northampton and Gloucestershire in English county cricket and coached Zimbabwe.

“I want to improve my batting though. It is really tough to get to bat in this line-up,” Curran smiled.