ICC World Cup 2019: England’s Tom Curran struggles with fitness issues as tournament nears

Fast bowler Tom Curran, who has made it to England’s 15-man preliminary World Cup squad, is the latest entrant to the injury scare club, as he has been ruled out of the domestic One-Day Cup match for Surrey against Middlesex. Curran had also missed the last match of Surrey, against Essex and this is the second straight match missed by him.

Though expected to be fit soon, such news is not encouraging the England team management as the time draws near for the commencement of World Cup. Joe Denly, who surprisingly also made the squad for the World Cup, is down with back spasm while plying his trade for the KKR in the ongoing IPL 2019. Curran missed out due to a knee niggle and is absent on Thursday with “a low-grade calf injury” as per reports of Evening Standard.

The World Cup-bound players for England will start preparations later this week as they assemble for the camp. This means that the national players, involved in the camp will not be available for the upcoming matches of the Royal London One-Day Cup from this week. In addition to this, England players participating in the IPL, like Jofra Archer, Ben Stokes, Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow, and Sam Billings will be making their returns to be part of the camp.

The Brits preparing for Pakistan series

The hosts England are preparing for their last international series before the ICC World Cup 2019, as they will face Pakistan in five ODI matches come May. This will also give them a chance to gauze their 17-man squad and finalize it to 15-man one for the ICC event. England is hosting the World Cup after 20 years but has hosted two ICC Champions Trophy events in 2013 and 2017.

It has been widely accepted that the home team is one of the favourites to lift their first ever 50-over trophy, given their no.1 ranking in the ICC ODI team rankings and the team management is leaving no stone unturned to ensure that it happens. But the injury concerns to some of the World Cup hopefuls are threatening to put a spanner in England’s preparations.

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