England batting coach Graham Thorpe has heaped praise on the youngster Sam Curran after he claimed his maiden five-wicket haul to dismantle Sri Lanka at the Oval in the 2nd ODI as well. Curran finished with the figures of five for 42 as the visitors could manage to put up 241/9. And, the coach has credited IPL for his rise.

“I think it’s helped him enormously,” Thorpe said of Sam Curran’s IPL tenure. “Every environment Sam has gone into, he’s shown that ability to compete and an ability to find a way of putting performances in. From that perspective, playing in the IPL has put him in high-pressured situations and pushed him.”

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He continued: “His T20 cricket has progressed really well, but I think establishing himself as a 50-over player as well is a really important part of it,” Thorpe observed. “He’s got to try and be in the mix as well for Test cricket. It sounds like quite a lot of cricket. As you know, with someone like Ben Stokes, the amount of work and fitness levels that are required for that is huge.”

Graham Thorpe further added that Sam Curran will feel the challenge when he had to excel across formats along with being consistent as well. The coach again shared that as a support staff it is their job to keep encouraging such talented youngsters.

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“So the challenge for Sam to be a multi-format cricketer is delivering that consistency as well for England time and time again. That’ll be one of the bigger challenges for Sam going forward. But that very much lies on his shoulders to do that. We know we’ve got a very exciting cricketer with us, and we just have to keep encouraging him to improve and keep getting better as a player all the time,” Graham Thorpe concluded.