Harry Brook’s stoic counter-attack kept England alive in the fight after their early collapse on Day 3 of the Edgbaston Test against India on Friday. Picking up the side with a record-breaking 303-run partnership alongside Jamie Smith, Brook played second fiddle in the onslaught but not without leaving his own impressions with the ‘charge’ against the India pacers.
Brook patiently coasted to his ninth Test century, becoming the fastest England batter in 96 years since Herbert Sutcliffe (43) to get there in only 44 innings. The young Yorkshireman’s Test average consequently moved past 60. At 60.37, Brook holds the second-highest Test average among active players who have played at least 20 innings, also the second among all Englishmen, behind Sutcliffe’s 60.73.
Former England captain Nasser Hussain was effusive in his praise of how Brook calibrated his innings and described how the sturdy right-hander punishes pacers to maintain the tempo, using a distinct shot-making technique by charging down the pitch.
“For his last three Test hundreds, he has walked to the crease with the scoreboard reading 45 for three, 26 for three and 25 for three here. He clearly deals well with pressure. Yes, on the second evening, he looked frenetic but that was simply because all of England’s batsmen’s brains were scrambled after 151 overs in the field,” Hussain wrote on his Daily Mail column.
“But the break overnight clearly did him some good, because from the start of that 303-run partnership with Jamie Smith, he was back to his normal, calm and composed self.”
Hussain noted how Brook wasn’t attempting to play catch-up with Smith even when the India seamers alternated from their short-ball ploy to bowling wide outside the off-stump.
“A REAL talent!” 👌
Test century number nine for @Harry_Brook_88! 🏏@IGcom | 🏴 #ENGvIND 🇮🇳 pic.twitter.com/mFBnrH8w5x
— England Cricket (@englandcricket) July 4, 2025
‘Never gotten out to it’
“Importantly, he didn’t try to keep up with Smith, either. Smith overtook him very quickly, but Brook just kept his own tempo. This was back to Bazball at its smartest.”
“Brook doesn’t just play one way. He’s a thinking cricketer and although there have been a couple of times that he has been sucked into things he perhaps shouldn’t have – he had a couple of brain fades in the 2023 Ashes with the short ball, and then got a bit bored with Sri Lanka tactically bowling wide to him and lost focus – he adapts to playing the shots in his favour,” observed Hussain.
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Hussain explained how Brook forces bowlers to alternate their plans to his liking while adeptly using the charge, down the track, to hit them off their conventional lengths.
“His charging down the pitch early on Friday to counter the Indian seamers was a case in point. Brook is doing it for a reason. There’s a method in that madness. He wants to put bowlers off and the statistics show you that he plays it well: 32 attempts at it have got him 92 runs, and he’s never got out to it.
“It’s clever batting: he charges because he realises there’s a certain length he’s uncomfortable with about seven metres down the pitch and when he sees a bowler bowling that length, he advances to hit him off it,” remarked Hussain.
