Curran salutes 'unbelievable' White after Steelbacks defeat Durham

Ben Curran hailed fellow Northants Steelbacks hero Graeme White after the 30-run win against Durham on Wednesday night.
Ben CurranBen Curran
Ben Curran

Curran hit 62 to help the Steelbacks keep their hopes of qualifying from the Vitality T20 Blast North Group alive.

White was key in demolishing the Durham reply, taking four for 26 as he became the Steelbacks' top T20 wickets taker of all time.

And Curran said: "I mean how good is (Graeme White)? Once again, he showed his class. He has done it for numerous years now and is still doing it. He is an unbelievable bowler and long may it continue.”

On his own display, Curran said: “It is a long tournament and I’ve been waiting to get my turn to come into the team and contribute - and it is 10 times better in a winning cause.

“(Brothers Sam and Tom) said they were going to be watching on the stream. I couldn’t do much yesterday so I was under the pump today to perform. It was nice to give them something to watch in their hotel.

“I’ve now got to get a hundred to beat them! There is always that competitive edge, and we want each other to do well, but it is more when you play a bad shot then you will get a bit of stick.

“We went pretty hard and it came off for us and then we adapted when we bowled. It was a game of powerplays and we came off."

The win was the Steelbacks' second in as many matches against Durham in the T20 competition this season.

And Durham lead high performance coach James Franklin said: “We were pretty much behind the game all the way. To be fair we kept them to a score which was achievable.

“After the powerplay we were staring down the barrel of a massive score but we managed to drag it back in the middle overs and held them to a score we thought we could chase down but we got blown away in our batting powerplay.

“That is where the game has been won and lost; their batting powerplay and our batting powerplay. We didn’t get either of those right at all.

“Spin came into play. Scott Borthwick bowled beautifully for us and then Graeme White and Mohammad Nabi were a significant difference.

“It is a positive side for us as a team that we keep persevering and get better but I am very disappointed with our batting performance.

"We haven’t had many bad batting performances in our T20 campaign but we can certainly say tonight was far off the mark for us.”

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