While he was named as the player of the series by Indian coach Gautam Gambhir in the recently concluded Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy, England batsman Harry Brook could not take England home along with Joe Root in the final Test of the series at The Oval with India winning the test by six runs. With Root being the highest run-scorer of the series for England with 537 runs, Brook finished with 481 runs at an average of 53.44 and it was his quick fire innings of 111 runs off 98 balls at The Oval that almost took the game away from India. Hailing Brook’s knock at The Oval, former England captain Geoffrey Boycott has termed Brook as one of the ‘great middle-order players of this generation’.
“I have believed for a long time that Harry Brook could be one of the great middle-order players of this generation. Players like him do not come along too often and he could end up in the same bracket as Wally Hammond and Denis Compton, who are regarded by everybody who saw them as among England’s greatest. Harry has that special quality of somehow making batting look easy. Let me tell you, it is not. He is tall and that gives him long levers so when he hits the ball he has a lot of power and takes the game away from bowlers without slogging. I defy anybody to tell me another No 5 in world cricket, or middle-order batsman, who has his talent, his ability to take the game by the scruff of the neck and have bowlers running in, not knowing what to bowl,” Boycott wrote in his column for The Telegraph.
With his century in England’s second innings, Brook now has ten Test centuries including one triple hundred in 30 Tests. The England batsman has amassed 2,820 runs in 30 Tests for England at an average of 57.55. Brook had become the fastest player to reach 800 Test runs breaking a record earlier held by Indian batsman Vinod Kambli. The 26-year-old batsman had also become the first Englishman to hit a triple hundred since Graham Gooch’s triple hundred against India in 1990 with a knock of 317 runs off 310 balls against Pakistan last year. It was the second fastest triple hundred in Test cricket history only behind Virender Sehwag’s record of 278 balls for his triple hundred against South Africa in 2008 before South African Wiaan Mulder scored a triple hundred against Zimbabwe in 297 balls and climbing to the second spot behind Sehwag’s record. Boycott praised Brook’s ability to hit hundreds consistently in Test cricket. “Harry has a special gift and has scored 10 hundreds in 30 innings. The best players are normally one hundred in four to five innings. He is one in three. You can talk all you want about bats being bigger, and the pitches better than ever. True. I get all that. But the fact is, you have to judge people in the era they play.Technically, Brook stays back a lot like Root, giving him more time to see the ball, judge the length and let it come to him. He takes the ball at the top of the bounce and then, if it is his day, he destroys teams,” Boycott added.
Brook and Joe Root had added 195 runs for the fourth wicket on the fourth day of the fifth Test at The Oval before Brook was caught by Mohammed Siraj off the bowling of Akash Deep. Brook and Root were involved in a record 454 run fourth wicket partnership for England against Pakistan last year beating the previous best record of 411 runs made by Colin Cowdrey and Peter May for England in 1958. Boycott also talked about how the two batsmen compliment each other’s style. “Harry is a dream middle-order player, especially when he has Joe Root at the other end, because they are totally opposite. Root is technically correct and undemonstrative. He just sets about his work by caressing the ball into the gaps. Joe rotates the strike comfortably which means that if you are at the other end, you are always getting some balls to face. Brook has such power and a force of personality in his batting which enables him to take bowlers apart. Root uses the rapier, Brook the sword to carve teams open.He does it so bloody quickly that in no time at all, the game is rushing away from the bowlers. That is what happened at the Oval. India kept looking up at the scoreboard and it was going mad. That is the danger with him,” Boycott added.
With England set to play Australia in The Ashes later this year, Brook will be one of the batsmen in spotlight in the series. In the 2023 Ashes, Brook had amassed 363 runs including four half-centuries in five Tests. Boycott urged Brook to assess the situation against the likes of Pat Cummins, Josh Hazelwood and Mitchell Starc in The Ashes. “I don’t think he will be able to tonk Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood quite so easily. He will have a chance against Mitchell Starc because he bowls magic deliveries but also gives you a lot of four balls. I just hope Harry is going to be intelligent enough not to change his game, but just assess the situation and be a bit more careful. That is all he has to do. There will be times when Australia are bowling well and trying to butcher them will not be the smartest thing to do. He has a good defence on both the front and back foot so it is not as though he cannot stay in. He can let the moment pass when the bowlers are on top.It’s like playing chess. There are times when you have to sit in and wait for your moment, then explode. If he comes running down the pitch at people like Hazlewood and Cummins then he will be asking for trouble but if he assesses the situation, he can be successful in Australia,” Boycott concluded.
