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Cricket World Player of the Week - Sam Curran & Ben Stokes

©CWM

Sam Curran was eventually named the Player of the Match and the Tournament as England lifted the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2022 trophy after beating Pakistan, but it was Ben Stokes who carried them over the finish line in a tense chase.

"I don't think I should be getting this, I think the way Ben Stokes played there, to get a fifty in a final and he does it so many times for us, he should get this," Sam Curran looked a bit embarrassed after receiving the Player of the Match award, following Ben Stokes' ice-cool 49-ball unbeaten 52 which took England to a 5-wicket win over Pakistan.

Curran was outstanding with the ball in the first dig, as he had been throughout the competition, picking up three wickets while giving away just 12 runs from his quota of four overs.

The left-arm medium pacer finished as the second-highest wicket-taker in the World Cup and the highest in the tournament proper as he took 13 wickets at 11.38 from just 6 innings.

The PoM award aside, the Player of the Series was well and truly deserved by the all-rounder.

Stokes, on the other hand, kept searching for his role throughout the competition, and found it in crunch games -- the true crisis man of England cricket, whom the opposition has to dislodge to even have a shot at winning.

His 49-ball 52 might have been far from chanceless and might have even left some fans tearing their hair out with the pace at which he was initially going, but even the most pessimistic of them would have known that with Stokes at the helm, it was more about when than if.