Zimbabwe Cricket have announced Ben Curran as replacement for an injured Brendan Taylor for the remainder of ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2026. The announcement came during Zimbabwe's group stage clash against Australia. Zimbabwe beat Australia by 23 runs to strengthen their chances of making it to the Super 8 stage.
“Zimbabwe Cricket (ZC) has confirmed that Ben Curran has been named as a replacement for Brendan Taylor in Zimbabwe’s squad for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026,” the board said in a statement.
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“Taylor has been ruled out of the remainder of the tournament after sustaining a right hamstring injury during Zimbabwe’s opening match against Oman in Colombo on 9 February.
“Following a medical assessment, it was determined that he will not recover in time to take any further part in the competition.”
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Ben Curran’s international career and T20 numbers
Ben, who is England’s Sam Curran and Tom Curran’s brother, has represented Zimbabwe in eight Test and as many ODIs. He is yet to make his T20I debut. However, he has played 43 T20s. He represented Northamptonshire in T20 Blast for four seasons. From 40 innings, he has 872 runs at an average of 22.94 and strike rate of 126.01. He has seven fifties in the format.
Double injury scare for Zimbabwe
In the hot and humid conditions of Colombo, Sikandar Raza suffered an injury and had to leave the field without completing his over. Richard Ngarava was already rested as a precautionary measure whereas Graeme Cremer had a split webbing as well. At one point, Zimbabwe had their assistant coach Dion Ebrahim in Zimbabwe kit and ready to take the field as a substitute fielder.
“We've only got 13 able bodies in the squad and then I went down. Cremer has got a slight split webbing, but nothing serious. We even asked Dion Ebrahim to put the kit on in case we need him. But I think Zimbabwe cricket is looking into the replacements and things like that. I'm sure they'll be here for the next game because ideally in these conditions, you don't know what's going to happen, so you want 15 able bodies available for selection at every given time,” Raza said in the post-match presentation.
Zimbabwe’s updated T20 World Cup 2026 squad -
Brian Bennett, Tadiwanashe Marumani, Dion Myers, Brendan Taylor (wk), Sikandar Raza (c), Ryan Burl, Tashinga Musekiwa, Brad Evans, Wellington Masakadza, Richard Ngarava, Blessing Muzarabani, Tony Munyonga, Clive Madande, Tinotenda Maposa, Graeme Cremer, Ben Curran.