Combative Curran grows in stature

Not all moments in a day's play are equal. A wicket, for instance, might just add one to the wicket's column regardless of who is out, but depending on the batsman, the context, the match, some are evidently more significant than others. A quickfire and unexpected thirty from a lower order player can sometimes change the mood around a game more than a solid thirty by a top order batsman who is expected to score runs. The reasons why may sometimes be intangible, but not all moments in a day's play are equal.

Which is why those who can seize the moment, those who can make the impacts that feel more significant, and actually turn out to be more significant, the moments that end up changing the course of a game, are so valuable. They are the cricketers that make things happen when something needs to happen.

England are lucky they have Ben Stokes, a cricketer who lives and breathes for those sort of moments. We saw it at Headingley during the summer with bat and ball. We saw it in Sri Lanka last winter. We saw it on day one at Bay Oval with his unbeaten half-century which transferred pressure back onto New Zealand at a time where they could have pressed home an advantage. And we saw it on the