Brotherly love goes out of the window – for one day only!

IT was the Curran show in Sharjah on Tuesday evening – and the elder brother is the holder of the bragging rights after the Rajasthan Royals beat the Chennai Super Kings.

- 

In what could easily have been billed as the clash of the siblings, Tom was outperformed by his brother with the ball – with Sam taking 3-33, including the wicket of Steve Smith as Rajasthan posted a score of 216 – but ended the day victorious in a thrilling encounter in the UAE.

The fact that both players find themselves in the starting XI’s of their respective franchises is an indication of how highly rated both are in this format and how the pair are likely to be integral to the success of either in this year’s IPL.

Whatever happens in the rest of the tournament, though, it’s a far cry from the matches the pair used to play against each other in the garden while growing up in Zimbabwe.

“It was really strange,” Tom tells The Cricket Paper. “We’ve always just played together. Throughout age-group stuff at Surrey, when I started playing for Surrey and Sam came in as the youngster.

“Obviously, I tried to help him out and he settled in pretty quickly and found his feet, then with the Lions and England. We’ve always just tried to help each other out and played with each other. Playing against each other was a strange feeling – it was a different type of concentration really, seeing him running in there were a lot more things on my mind than usual for those first couple, which was strange.