Ashes: Fast-tracked Harry Brook has devastating game to give Australia plenty to ponder
What do you think?” The question of whether Harry Brook might target Nathan Lyon’s off-spin this summer was asked in pursuit of a punchy articulation of a known answer, but the frank, smirking reply was, if anything, more telling.
When Brook did elaborate, his response was a little less bullish than one might have anticipated from a player who, less than a year into his England career, has developed a reputation as if not a great talker, then certainly an amusingly straight one.
“If he bowls a good ball, then I’m going to respect it,” the 24-year-old said. “Other than that, I’m going to try and take him on. He could get a lot of wickets, but hopefully we’re going to hit him for a lot of runs.”
It was a relief, though not a surprise, to find Brook’s confidence apparently unbruised by his turbulent time at the IPL, where a hefty price-tag and a quite brilliant hundred were not enough, amid an otherwise lean spell, to stop his maiden campaign ending on the bench, nor a barrage of jibes from Indian supporters online.
“I’ve come off social media … tou don’t really see anything now. It’s a lot better.”
/ Getty Images“I’ve come off social media — I’ve got somebody running it for me,” he added. “You don’t really see anything now. It’s a lot better.”
Ahead of a series that comes with noise like no other and a summer that could take Brook’s already fast-tracked career to an altogether different plane, that is probably for the best.
Ashes series, it is always said, have the capacity to turn great cricketers into household names — and one of the beauties of this particular one is that both teams are crammed full of them: Ben Stokes, Joe Root, James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Jonny Bairstow on the English side; Steve Smith, David Warner, Pat Cummins on the Australian.
It is an historic rivalry between two nations, yes, but also one lived for a prolonged period by a significant proportion of its incumbents.
England prepare for first Ashes Test
Brook is a notable exception, one of only two players set to feature at Edgbaston yet to experience the Ashes first-hand.
The other, Ben Duckett, has trod a slow road back to this level, the opener’s recall for last winter’s tour of Pakistan coming after six years in the international wilderness, but having been on the fringes of England’s set-up 12 months ago, Brook is already a T20 World Cup winner with four Test hundreds to his name and an average above 80.
Established as he may be — so much so that Bairstow’s route back into the side had to come elsewhere — even fair-weather cricket fans may well at this stage have heard more of Brook’s genius than they have seen, his Test centuries all coming overseas, some at strange hours, and his home record reading 12, DNB, 9 not out, DNB.
Catch half-an-hour of Brook in flow this summer and even the casual viewer will surely be snared, as, he said yesterday, he was as a schoolboy by Kevin Pietersen’s majesty in 2005. Catch half-a-day’s worth and Australia could be in serious trouble.
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