<\/p>\n
England have pledged to go into Thursday\u2019s T20 World Cup<\/a> semi-final against India with no fear, with Sam Curran describing the fixture as \u201ca dream\u201d and \u201ca brilliant opportunity\u201d about which they are feeling \u201chugely confident\u201d.<\/p>\n On the face of it the challenge England face is daunting. Though they won all three games in the Super 8 stage to ease into the semi-finals those matches were played in Sri Lanka, where they now have a 100% record in six outings this year. They have since returned to Mumbai, where they were so nearly beaten by Nepal<\/a> in their tournament opener and then actually beaten by West Indies<\/a>, and where they can expect nothing but hostility from a sold-out crowd of 33,000.<\/p>\n Though scoring rates here in this tournament have been relatively modest, across the last three seasons of the Indian Premier League the Wankhede has been the competition\u2019s highest-scoring ground, with an average of 9.89 runs scored per over. India\u2019s team is packed with players who have extensive experience here including their captain, Suryakumar Yadav, the highest scorer on the ground in that time with 888 runs in 20 innings at the extraordinary average of 63.42, and his Mumbai Indians teammate Jasprit Bumrah, who with 23 wickets at 11.52 and an economy of 5.61 does not so much stand out from other bowlers as exist in a different category entirely of his own. England played India here as recently as last February: the opener Abhishek Sharma scored a ludicrous 135 off 54<\/a>, England were bowled out in just over 10 overs and the winning margin was 150, making it the worst T20 defeat in England\u2019s history.<\/p>\n But despite all of this, and the fact England are yet to produce a truly authoritative display in this tournament, their coach-and-captain combo of Brendon McCullum and Harry Brook have managed to locate bright sides to look on, such as redefining some of their poor performances as morale-boosting evidence that they can, in Curran\u2019s words, \u201cwin games from scenarios that we probably shouldn\u2019t\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cBaz and Brooky are very positive people and they\u2019re just keeping the group nice and calm,\u201d Curran said. \u201cThese games are what we dream of. It\u2019s such a cool experience. It\u2019s kind of, how exciting to play India in the semi-final. Everybody knows how we\u2019re going to play them. They know how we\u2019re going to attack them.\u201d<\/p>\n