Harry Brook’s shot selection has come under scrutiny after his dismissal that turned the game in India’s favour on day 4 of the Lord’s Test. Former England captain Mike Atherton has written that there was “no merit” in the shot that led to Brook’s dismissal.
It was an interesting short phase of play that highlighted Brook’s impetuosity and Indians’s shrewdness. Brook had lapped two fours of Akash Deep with the wicketkeeper Dhruv Jurel standing up to the stumps, and then smashed a six over long-off, once Jurel went back to his regular position.
For Akash’s next over, Shubman Gill and the bowler made an important change. They moved the boundary fielder behind square on the leg side a lot finer. To try prevent Brook from playing that aerial lap-scoop. Now the gap was more squarer, but it would be a riskier shot if Brook wanted to target that. But the attacking batsman, ranked No.1 in the world, went for it. That area couldn’t be targeted by the lap-scoop and so he went for a sweep shot of sorts. And unsurprisingly missed and Akash roared as the ball clattered into the stumps.
“… but when Gill moved his boundary fielder finer to block out the scoop, there was no merit in Brook’s response the following over, when he aimed a sweep and lost his middle stump,” Atherton wrote in The Times. “Brook’s was not the only poor shot of the innings — Root and Stokes, later on, took the wrong options to Sundar — but it was the shot where the balance between risk and reward was most out of kilter. The ball he got out to was, in effect, a straight half-volley just like the one he had whipped through mid-wicket the previous over off Reddy, and a straighter bat would have been a better offering again,” added Atherton.
Atherton was also miffed about Zak Crawley’s dismissal. Crawley had seen off tough opening spells from Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammad Siraj, when Gill brought on medium pacer Nitish Kumar Reddy. Initially, Gill had just one gully but soon placed two gullies for Crawley, who has been out a few times in the series, driving loosely away from the body.
And when Nitish served a full ball outside off that just about shaped away a touch, Crawley went for the bait with another expansive drive. And the edge was pouched by Yashasvi Jaiswal in the second of those gully positions. Jaiswal had dropped a few catches in the previous Test, but didn’t make any mistake this time.
“Nitish Kumar Reddy replaced Bumrah on the hour and snared Crawley to one of those infuriating dismissals that continue to provoke questions about the opener’s willingness to learn and improve. Having seen off Bumrah, things were set to get easier, but a loose drive to an innocuous ball ended up in the hands of Jaiswal in the gully,” Atherton wrote.
