For an insight into how much Sam Curran wants to succeed at international cricket – how much he really wants it – take a look at his face as he runs in to bowl.
On the other side of the rope this 20-year-old is a polite young man with a softly spoken and self-deprecating manner. But stick a cricket ball in his hand and suddenly his features scrunch into something far more intense, like a Cabbage Patch Kid morphing into the knife-wielding doll, Chucky, from those awful Child’s Play films.
The eyes somehow become burning blue, the mouth tightens and the veins bulge out of the forehead as he hurtles in to send down his bustling left-arm swingers. Whatever the end result of a career that has begun in hugely promising fashion, there is no doubt Curran will be known as an England cricketer who left little effort unspent.
Some faces are made this way, of course. Take Virat Kohli. Those dark, thick caterpillar eyebrows burrow down into the top of his nose, so that even in one of his lighter moments one suspects the switch could flick at any moment. The Indian captain is a man of many expressions and emotions but the default is always a smouldering one. In the afternoon session of the second day in Southampton this piercing pair met for what could prove one of the pivotal moments in the series.
Curran was already fresh from rescuing England 24 hours earlier with a steadfast 73 that had given him and his fellow bowlers something to work with. And yet Kohli, newly past 6,000 Test runs and on 46, was ominously building another innings alongside Chesteshwar Pujara, threatening to make this all redundant. Though Stuart Broad had wiped out the openers in the morning, Jimmy Anderson had been off colour and, with India 142 for two at the start of the 42nd over – 105 runs behind – Joe Root was desperate for an intervention.
The final ball of Curran’s previous over – an overpitched floater – had been driven imperiously to the rope by Pujara. Another 20-year-old’s head might have dropped. But with eyes still incandescent, he hustled in once more and in a Test match dominated by the swinging Dukes, sent down the most gun-barrel-straight delivery to date.
Suddenly Kohli found himself reaching for a ball he had expected to duck in, could make contact only with the outside edge of his bat and Alastair Cook – no sure thing at first slip these days – held on low to his right. Root’s clenched fists alongside Cook said it all as his opposite number thundered back to the pavilion.
Just the previous evening Curran, when asked whether his future is primarily as a batsman or bowler, cited his desire to be an impact player in the mould of Ben Stokes regardless of discipline. This was an instant return on that stated aim, picking the lock before his fellow all-rounders, first Stokes and then Moeen Ali, barged down the door.
The latter may have ended up with five wickets in his column but such is the burning presence of Kohli currently – the world’s No 1 player and an astonishing 250 runs ahead of the next best batsman in this series – there is arguably a case for an asterisk to go by the name of the bowler who sends him on his way.
Looking ahead, who knows what Curran will become. As is often the case with newcomers there can be a tendency among some to highlight their limitations. Perhaps he is too short; bowling in the low 80mphs might see him suffer overseas; he is yet another all-rounder in what is an English glut. The early signs, however, are that these will be overcome and one thing is for certain: this young man wants it bad.
