24-year-old England all-rounder Sam Curran won the player of the tournament award in the ICC T20 World Cup in Australia. Curran scalped an impressive 13 wickets in the event and played a pivotal role in steering England to its second ICC T20 World Cup victory. England thus became the first side to be defending World champions in both ODI and T20 formats at the same time.

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Sam Curran mainly contributed with the ball and was at his incisive best in the final on Sunday against Pakistan, bowling a brilliant and potentially match-changing spell of 12/3 in 4 overs. Of the 3 victims of Curran were dangerous batsman Mohammed Rizwan and Pakistan’s highest scorer of the day, Shan Masood. In recent days, openers Babar Azam and Mohammed Rizwan have played a major role in the side’s success story and thus breaking their partnership was indeed crucial. Curran’s best bowling performance of the event was against Afghanistan where he went home with a 5-wicket haul of 10/5 in 3.4 overs at a highly economical rate of 2.73 runs per over.

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Curran finished the tournament as the second highest wicket- taker behind Wanindu Hasaranga of Sri Lanka who scalped 15 wickets but the brit performed when stakes were much higher, considering that Sri Lanka entered the Super 12 through qualifiers. Also, the fact that Sri Lanka didn’t even enter the semis proves that Curran played much tougher sides.

While Curran also took home the player of the match award for his bowling, Virat Kohli of India won the highest run scorer award, having scored as many as 296 runs in just 6 innings at an astronomical average of 98.67. The highest wicket-taker award went to Wanindu Hasaranga of Sri Lanka for his 15 wickets. Other notable performers of the event include Surya Kumar Yadav of India who scored 239 runs, South African southpaw Rilee Roussouw and Kiwi wicketkeeper-batsman Glenn Phillips, who were the only two to score tons in the event. Shaheen Shah Afridi who started and ended the tournament with injuries, also played admirably, securing 11 wickets in the matches in which he played.