With the injury of Mitchell Starc ruling him out of the Indian Premier League 2018, it became imperative for them to sign a replacement. The rumours of Tom Curran being signed as a replacement has been doing the rounds for a while and now a press release from Surrey has revealed that the Englishman has been snapped up by the West Bengal franchise.

Mitchell Starc was inflicted with a tibial bone stress and had to miss the subsequent fourth Test against South Africa as well as the Indian Premier League. With the pacer out of the equation, the Kolkata franchise had to sign someone and have roped in Curran.

Curran, who is a bowling all-rounder with a batting average of 19.05 and bowling average of 27.16 in T20s, is a third generation cricket and will play in the IPL for the very first time.

“I’m thrilled and excited to be joining Kolkata Knight Riders for the IPL,” said Curran. “I know from chatting to other players I can learn a lot from being in that environment, skills that I hope will benefit Surrey and my chances of representing England again this year and if selected, for next year’s World Cup.”

While Curran might not be a direct replacement for Mitchell Starc given that he is a right-handed bowler, his inclusion gives Kolkata an extra batting option to have. There is, however, a feeling that Kolkata might have missed a trick here by not going for a pure batsman since they already have a readymade Starc replacement in Mitchell Johnson and also somewhat of a lack of inexperienced batters in the line-up.