The Sam Curran injury that has shadowed his summer will now require surgery, ending the England all-rounder’s hopes of a Test recall this season. The Surrey left-armer, 28, goes under the knife on his groin on Friday and has been ruled out of the remainder of the English season, BBC Sport reported from Headingley on Thursday.
Sam Curran Injury Leaves England Short Of An All-Rounder
Curran had returned to the Test conversation for the first time in five years after Ben Stokes’s retirement from international cricket left England without a seam-bowling all-rounder. He has 24 caps, the last of them in 2021, and had been pencilled in for the series decider against Pakistan at Edgbaston on 9 September.
Selector Marcus North said Curran was seriously considered for the first two Tests, but that an intense workload – including captaining MI London in the Hundred – made back-to-back matches at Headingley and Lord’s “unfair” on him, ESPNcricinfo reported. He had already withdrawn from this year’s IPL with a groin problem in March.
The absence is felt in England’s balance. Without Curran or Stokes, Joe Root’s side named no frontline spinner for the first Test against Pakistan at Headingley, picking Dan Lawrence at No. 6 to fill the spin role with part-time off-breaks alongside four quicks.
Surrey lose a second all-rounder on the same morning. Will Jacks, who filled a similar role for England last winter, has had his appendix removed and misses Thursday’s County Championship fixture with Nottinghamshire. An ECB statement said England “will monitor his recovery and assess availability ahead of the Sri Lanka series” in September. Curran will miss those white-ball matches under Harry Brook regardless, and his Test comeback is now a winter question at the earliest.
