Two days out from the third straight semi-final between the teams (the second one was in Guyana in the 2024 T20 World Cup), to be played in Mumbai on March 5, Curran said he hoped England could do an encore of the Adelaide semi and play the “perfect” match and “silence” the Wankhede crowd.

“Everyone’s saying when are England going to play the perfect game, that’s (Adelaide semis) our perfect game,” Curran said on Tuesday afternoon before the team’s training session. “So if we can get anything close to that, that’d be great. You kind of look back on fond memories. Jos was our man that day, Jos and Halesy (Alex Hales) and that’s just the perfect game. If you want to defend, take down someone by 10 wickets, we bowled really well, that was a massive Indian crowd as well. So we take a lot of positives. To be honest, I don’t care if we play a perfect game or not. I just want to win and get to another World Cup final.”

While Will Jacks, who has won a record four Player-of-the-Match awards, has been their best all-round player, Brook himself is not far behind as the leading run-maker, including scoring the match-winning century against Pakistan in the Super Eight.

“Everyone worries about each individual’s form so much,” Curran said. “The fact is we have been winning. So I don’t think the guys are actually too fussed about personal form. World Cup cricket’s so different to bilateral cricket. Everyone worries about individuals and all this kind of stuff. It’s exciting as a group that we haven’t fired.

“Everyone’s going to be saying on Thursday night, if someone comes off, it’s at the end of the day, if England win, everyone’s going to be happy. So maybe we just focus on the whole team, which I think we’re doing as players.”

Despite Curran exuding positivity and confidence in the England dressing room, one important player who has had a miserable World Cup is Buttler, who has scored 62 runs in seven innings including a duck in the last match against New Zealand. On Tuesday, Buttler spent nearly two hours doing batting drills – starting with not moving his feet while facing throwdowns to work on his hand movement, bat swing and head not falling over, followed by the normal batting both facing throwdowns and the bowlers.

Buttler has close affinity to Wankhede having started his IPL career at Mumbai Indians where he played in 2016 and 2017. In 31 T20 innings at the venue, Buttler has scored 901 runs at average of 32.46 and strike rate of 143.82, including a century.

“He obviously wants more runs, but I certainly would rather have Jos Buttler in my team than coming up against him on Thursday night,” Curran said. “He’s done so well for us over many, many years and he’s done well at this ground many, many times as well. So, hopefully, Thursday night is his night, but if it’s not, there’s no question he’s one of the best in the world.”

The second semi-final will be played on the central pitch, on the same strip where England lost against West Indies and newcomers Italy beat Nepal to register their maiden win at a World Cup. Significantly, though, the pitch was spin-friendly: spinners took 14 wickets at an economy of 7.19 while fast bowlers took eight wickets at 10.35. While the red-soil pitch will continue to have good bounce, it is understood the degree of turn would not be as much as in the two previous matches played on it, and the ball is likely to skid more. Two days before the semi-final, the pitch was raw mango green. It is understood, though, there has been frequent watering and drying done over the past two weeks so the pitch is expected to be on the drier side.

Curran reckoned the toss and dew wouldn’t be a big factor considering both teams will be more occupied by the pressure of playing a big match. “In a semi-final, there’s so much…maybe the pressure will take out the aspect of whether it’s dew or not. If there’s any dew experts out there come and join our sheds, but I don’t think there is. So if we bowl first, hopefully rock and roll ’em, and if we bat first hopefully we get a big score.”

Whatever team India plays, the 12th man – the home crowd – is a constant and has shown it is capable of influencing the match and overwhelm the opponent. England, though, Curran said, are well accustomed to the delirium a full house at an India venue can generate. So if England do manage to get the crowd quiet, he said, it would be favourable for them.

“We’re very prepared for what the crowd’s going to be like. As a player you get goosebumps, it’s so cool to play in such stadiums and noise. If we find ways to keep the crowd nice and quiet, we’re probably doing really well in the game situation.”

Asked how players can block out the crowd which can add to the intense pressure, Curran said it is all part of preparing for this big moment in a player’s career.

“Flying to Mumbai from Sri Lanka, you kind of think about you dreaming of as a kid, what would you love to do? And that’s probably take on India in India. It’s such an amazing experience. We’ll probably start with the national anthems. It’ll be incredibly loud and you’ve got to look at that as an exciting opportunity. If the crowd are silent, England are probably going to be doing well. So I guess that’s our positive way of looking at it. We played so much cricket in India as players and you just get so used to it and you can block it out and you take it in.”