Sam Curran gave a stunning performance as an all-around performance for an underwhelming CSK team in the previous edition of the Indian Premier League. Sam Curran turned out to be a hero for the Chennai Super Kings when they seemed pretty hapless in the UAE and finished second from bottom.
While CSK failed to qualify for the playoffs for the first time since the inaugural season of the Indian Premier League. But despite this, Sam Curran had a fruitful season. In the 14 matches he played last season, Sam scored 186 runs in the CSK middle order with an average above 23 and a strike rate over 130. He also picked up 13 wickets during the tournament.
As this year, IPL is returning back to India, the young cricketer feels like this makes IPL more important for players to become familiar with the conditions. He also claimed that IPL made him a much better player as he got to play many roles and got challenged in many different ways. He said:
“I definitely came back a much better player after the IPL in Dubai last year. I had to play many different roles and got challenged in many different ways, which I really enjoyed and I think it has benefitted my game,”
He added:
“The IPL is a fantastic tournament and we love playing in it. India is an amazing place to play cricket and it is the best T20 tournament around. It’s great as a player to be playing in it, especially with that T20 World Cup in India, it’s going to be great preparation. You are playing against such quality opposition and such international stars in this tournament, there’s nothing better than game time and playing under pressure,”
Well, these statements by Sam Curran are a perfect reply to Dale Steyn’s distasteful comments about the Indian Premier League. For the unversed, it was a couple of days back when Dale Steyn had said that global T20 tournaments like Pakistan Super League (PSL) were more rewarding than the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Yes, you read that right. Steyn had said that cricket takes a back seat in IPL because of the extra cash involved in the IPL. He had said:
“I wanted some time off. I found that playing in these other leagues was slightly more rewarding as a player. I think when you go to IPL, there are such big squads and so many big names and so much emphasis on maybe the amount of money players earn and everything like that, so sometimes, somewhere down the line, cricket gets forgotten,” said Steyn.
He added:
“When you come to like a PSL or the Sri Lankan Premier League, for that matter, there is an importance on the cricket. I have only been here for a couple of days and I have had people in and out of my room, just wanting to know about where I have played and how I went about it.”
“Whereas, when I go to something like the IPL that gets forgotten and the main topic is how much money did you go for in this IPL? That’s just me being brutally honest. I wanted to stay away from that and really put more emphasis on playing and bringing good vibes to good cricket teams and tournaments I feel are worth it,”
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