WA wicketkeeper added a maiden first-class century to go with his four in Premier Cricket to start the season
Persistence pays off for Perth run-machine Curtis
Joel Curtis had a right to feel a little nervous going into last Friday's Sheffield Shield clash with Victoria.
In his two appearances prior, the West Australian wicketkeeper had managed just one run and was desperate to show his stellar grade form could translate into first-class success.
WA had batted just once in each of Curtis' two matches – he got a golden duck on debut against Queensland 12 months ago before scoring a solitary single in their innings victory over Tasmania earlier this month.
The 25-year-old left-hander has been on a tear for Perth in WA Premier Cricket, starting the season with three consecutive centuries, but naturally, until you do it at the next level, there's always those doubts as to whether you can.
"There's always been times where I've (wondered), 'Is this worth it?' Or your mates are at university and (doing other) things," Curtis said after posting his maiden first-class century on Monday in WA's loss to Victoria.
"I've always just come back to the love for the game and just trying to always improve. But there's been some tough times for sure."
Curtis' journey to professional cricket has been one of extreme dedication and persistence, rising through the club ranks after missing out on underage opportunities for Western Australia.
When Josh Philippe moved to NSW during the off-season, there were some that assumed that having made his first-class debut last summer and peeled of 972 runs at 54 in Premier Cricket that he was next in line for a contract.
Instead, WA list managers recruited delisted Blues gloveman Baxter Holt who started the 2024-25 domestic season as the three-time reigning champions' 'keeper in the One-Day Cup before Josh Inglis returned from international duties in October.
Curtis, overlooked after also scoring a century in one of WA's preseason practice matches, had become accustomed to fighting hard for every opportunity and steeled himself for a return to club cricket to bang the door down again.
He did so with scores of 100, 138, 101 and 68 in his first four first-grade innings of the season to earn a recall for WA's round three trip to Hobart with Inglis absent due to Australia's ODI series against Pakistan.
While he only managed one coming in at 5-267, he went back to Premier Cricket the following weekend and hit another hundred, taking his season tally for Perth to 507 runs at 127.
"It was pretty tough, and I think it was almost a little bit worse because everyone else was saying, 'Oh, you're going to get a contract'," Curtis recalled recently to his mentor of almost a decade, Tom Scollay, on The Cricket Mentoring podcast.
"It was definitely disappointing at first, but once I just accepted it … regardless of if I was contracted or not, I was going to have a preseason where I'm going to try and be the best I could be."
Without a state contract, Curtis, who runs a personal training business outside of his cricket commitments after realising an electrical apprenticeship was "not what (he) wanted to do", spent his preseason training with the WA Academy at 6am every Monday and Friday.
With a focus on sharpening his technique to keep his body height as level as possible at the point of the bowler's release to improve his scoring opportunities down the ground, Curtis put it into practice ahead of the summer in T20 tournaments with the Scorchers in Darwin and Queensland's T20 Max.
"I guess I had a bit of a point to prove and I think that really helps fuel me," he said on the podcast.
"I sat down with 'Trav' (Travis Birt, WA men's assistant and academy coach) at the end of last year for a review of my season and I scored a lot of fifties (12).
"My goal was to convert some of those fifties into hundreds and that obviously will make your season look a lot better."
Having converted four times in five innings in Premier Cricket, Curtis retained his place in WA's XI for their round four trip to Melbourne, seizing his chance to prove he does belong by top scoring for his side in both innings as many of his teammates struggled against Victoria's relentless seam attack.
While WA ultimately went down by a comfortable eight-wicket margin, Curtis' sublime unbeaten 119 in the second innings - batting mostly with the lower-order - kept his side in the contest on days three and four and ensured the margin wasn't far greater.
"An outstanding innings, great temperament and another WA 'keeper-batter performing exceptionally well," former Australian leg-spinner Bryce McGain noted in commentary.
For Curtis, the knock was validation for years of toil in club cricket, not just in Perth but also abroad in England where at one point he was on the fringes of Worcestershire's county set up after featuring in two second XI matches in 2022, hitting 94 for Middlesex in June before representing the West Midlands club later in the season.
Those opportunities came as he broke the Middlesex County Cricket League's division one season runs record with 1242 in 18 matches, that much like his form for Perth this summer, included a streak of four straight centuries.
Due to his mum's British heritage (born in Liverpool), his record-breaking season opened opportunities to pursue a career in England, but Curtis says his heart was in Australia and he wanted to "give it (his) best crack".
He earned his Shield debut in November 2023 when Philippe was dropped and subsequently called up last-minute for Australia T20 tour of India when several white-ball and all-format stars were rested following their ODI World Cup triumph days earlier.
But when the Shield competition resumed following the Big Bash break, it was Philippe who got the nod over Curtis, who despite scoring five half-centuries for Perth since his debut, missed out for WA's Second XI with scores of 0 and 2 leading into the second half of the season.
As resolute as ever, Curtis went back to work, drawing on his experiences of when "everything clicked" during stints in the UK and Darwin that he believes fast tracked his development and helped him "mature a lot faster as a person".
"It's been multiple seasons in Darwin and the UK and just trying to get better," Curtis said after his breakthrough Shield innings.
"I had a few preseason games in Darwin and Brisbane and then started the season well in club cricket for Perth and now to transition that to first-class (level) … very pleased with it, it's a nice feeling for sure.
"Lots of hard work has gone into it and it's good that it's come off."
Curtis, who only took up wicketkeeping in his late teens, hopes he's done enough to keep his place even if it's as a specialist batter, with WA waiting to hear whether Inglis will be released from Australia's Test squad to play in their next Shield match, a day-night encounter at Adelaide Oval beginning Saturday that speedsters Jhye Richardson and Lance Morris could also be in line to play.
Sheffield Shield standings 2024-25
| Team | M | W | L | D | N/R | Ded. | Bat | Bowl | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1
VIC
|
4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3.76 | 3.4 | 20.16 |
|
2
WA
|
4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3.85 | 3.2 | 20.05 |
|
3
SA
|
4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2.64 | 3.6 | 19.24 |
|
4
NSW
|
4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3.03 | 3.3 | 14.33 |
|
5
TAS
|
4 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 5.41 | 3.2 | 10.61 |
|
6
QLD
|
4 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3.75 | 3.6 | 10.35 |
M: Matches played
W: Wins
L: Losses
D: Drawn
N/R: No results
Ded.: Deductions
Bat: Batting Bonus
Bowl: Bowling Bonus
PTS: Total points