Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) had eight overseas players in their squad in IPL 2024. Among them, seven were part of the playing XI at some stage during the season. In fact, RCB, led by Faf du Plessis, made a plethora of changes in the first half when they were in the middle of the losing streak. But throughout the season, they didn't try one overseas player, Tom Curran, and benched him for the entire IPL edition. The same player, in the first game of the T20 Blast, shined for his county side Surrey with his all-round heroics.
Yes, Curran was available throughout for RCB in IPL 2024 but he didn't get a single chance this season and ended up being benched all the time. The same player turned for Surrey against Hampshire on the opening day of T20 Blast and picked up three wickets for 32 runs while also smashing an unbeaten 37 off just 20 balls.
With the ball, the 29-year-old dismissed the set batters of opposition Joe Weatherley and Toby Albert for 33 and 46 runs respectively and also got the better of veteran Benny Howell in the death overs. Later in the match, in the chase of 163 runs, Curran came out to bat in the 14th over with Surrey struggling at 100/5 and ended up smashing 37 off the next 63 to take his team over the line.
Curran smacked two sixes and as many fours as Surrey won the last over thriller to get on the board in the season. He was bought by RCB at the auction for his base price of 1.5 crore and Curran has proved his mettle in the T20 Blast after warming the bench for two months showing that his IPL franchise could've at least tried him in one of the matches.
