Posted by Harry Brook walked out at 8-3 in England’s first innings in Melbourne. Mitchell Starc ran in and bowled at 145.1km/h. Brook ran at it, swung with all his might… and completely missed it. It was one of the most glorious arrivals we can ever remember seeing.
This was, let’s be clear, a breath-takingly awful shot, but therein lies its magnificence. Because how can you not admire a man who must surely know what people are already saying about him and what they will go on to say, who digests all that, processes it, and then decides on this as a course of action?
“Disgrace! Send him home!”
At times it’s hard to tell whether the BBC’s cricket coverage sets, captures or reflects the wider mood of English cricket. Perhaps it’s all three.
“Oh dear me,” said Jonathan Agnew on commentary. “Has nothing that’s been said these last few weeks – nothing – gone in at all? I’m sorry. This is the vice captain.”
This was the backdrop to Brook’s shot. England had lost the Ashes. They hadn’t batted well. They’d gone to Noosa and some of them had drunk beer.
Brook, for some reason, was a bit of a lightning rod for all of this.
We’d later learn that Brook had been lamped by a Kiwi bouncer the night before captaining England to a defeat on the previous tour. This casts his broader decision-making in a rather different light, but not all his on-field decisions are bad ones – even the ones that most definitely are when viewed in isolation.
A certain sort of England fan believes there is one specific, correct way to bat in Test cricket and anything that falls outside of that must by definition reduce a player’s effectiveness. Brook has the highest Test average of any England batter this century and he has achieved that with almost complete disregard for preservation of his wicket.
He has not achieved this despite that approach. He has achieved it because of it. If his method is imperfect in places, there are more pluses than minuses. Some cannot see what he has gained (and what we have gained) from playing this way. They for some reason take his achievements as proof he would obviously be better still if only he were to approach Test match batting in an entirely different way.
Witless?
After the Adelaide Test – the match before this innings – The Telegraph ran an article headlined “Harry Brook’s witless self-destruction sums him and England up.”
Just to hammer the point home, the standfirst began, “Batsman’s addiction to circus flourishes undermine [sic] his immense talent.”
The carefree approach has unquestionably worked for Brook, but jeez, how do you maintain that when you’re being endlessly pressured by this crap? More than ever right now, we worry how it’ll erode him. To come out and play not merely a daft shot, but a shot almost wilfully antagonistic in its daftness in Melbourne was therefore positively heroic in our eyes.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: the thing about performing mad, unlikely, incredible feats is that you first have to attempt them.
Just over a year ago, Brook responded to his team being 26-3 and soon after 43-4 by hitting 123 off 115 balls against New Zealand. We felt that this was Peak Harry Brook and we were already afraid for him, wondering what psychological chicanery he must indulge in to keep those troublesome cares away.
It’s vital that he does. If this one specific shot against Starc was bad, Brook’s overall output has been massively enhanced by the strategy that gave rise to it. And it’s not like he even got out.
Similarly, batting like Joe Root works for Joe Root… usually. But on day one in Melbourne, Root played his first 14 balls very sensibly and was then out for a duck off the 15th.
So it’s not like England threw every last bit of caution to the wind that day. Someone gave a more cautious approach a go, and that someone was Joe Root… and he didn’t score a run.
In contrast, Brook wasn’t deterred by his air swipe. He in fact advanced at quick bowlers five times in his first 15 balls.
The man is not cowed by the scorecard. This is actually a good thing.
We are not here to say that running down the wicket first ball to disturb only some Melbourne air constitutes a great move from anyone. We are saying that, for Brook at least, this kind of mad, brave, bold proactivity drags his finer qualities along in its wake. Why put so much emphasis on just one ball?
Against India, last summer, Brook came out late in the day and largely played for the close against Jasprit Bumrah. It was sensible cricket, but he looked terrible. The one attacking shot he played, he was caught off a no-ball.
The next morning everyone was excited to see the pair resume hostilities. Ollie Pope had just been dismissed for 106 in the previous over; the match was in the balance. Brook ran down the pitch at the finest bowler in the world and hit the most exquisite drive you’ll ever see. He made 99 and lost his wicket playing a jumping hook shot that made a lot of people very angry. England won the match.
The Melbourne shot was Brook at his maddest, bravest and boldest and if all of his greatest innings have been carved out of madness, bravery and boldness, how much do you really want to chip away at those things?
Shortly afterwards, he slapped Starc over extra cover for six, having attempted pretty much exactly the same shot. He wristed another six over long-on when the score was still 39-4.
Twenty wickets fell on day one at Melbourne and no-one else passed 40. Brook was unbeaten in the second innings and the winning runs came off his thigh pad.
The one time he was dismissed, LBW, he was trying to defend. Watching it again, we cannot fathom why he didn’t take the safe option of running down the pitch and carting it over extra cover for six.
He’s the vice captain. Has nothing gone in at all? Brook’s witless addiction to passive defensive strokes undermines his immense talent.
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Well said. I have been making this argument to friends and family all Christmas, to little success. You have put it much better than I ever could. Rest assured that several people I know will be receiving this article along with a smug ‘I told you so’ caption.
We’re grateful for the free publicity and excited to see how many new subscribers can be acquired via smug I told you sos.
Never underestimate the power of smug I told you sos, people are always telling me how much they love it when I correct them.
By the way, I just wanted to note that I have finally achieved my life’s ambition of being the first to comment on one of these articles. I read all of them, including the twenty word ones from back in 2009, but a combination of my absentmindedness and my work mean that I usually only think about commenting the day after the comments have closed.
First and second, no less. You should have gone in again and swept the podium. Least you deserve after 15 years penance.
Damn it, I knew there was something I’d forgotten. Never mind, I’ll get the treble one of these days, 2040 here I come.
I love Harry Brook playing like a madman as it clearly works for him, and particularly in the lottery that was the Melbourne pitch it was the best approach. It’s also worth noting the none of his dismissals were caught in the deep, the reverse sweep and a couple of flashy drives on the up were his only stupid dismissals, most were fairly normal sort of “nicked a good one” type wickets. My problem is everyone else trying to do the same. The Australians let Head bat in Brookesque fashion but no one else is pressured to do the same (although lets be honest, right now there are several Aussie batters who have issues of their own). Root has largely just done his thing, but when you see Pope driving at everything with very hard hands surely team management needs to sit him down and say “You are not Brook, bat like yourself, not him”. Brook plays mad shots but it seems that for the most part he picks the right balls and the moments to do them, but his team mates don’t.
My current impression of the team is that nobody really receives any coaching or technical mentoring because ‘they already know how to do it’. To be fair that is a great way to coach Stuart broad, Joe root, Ben Stokes, Jimmy Anderson, Jack leach, ben foakes, and Jonny bairstow.
This seems to be becoming the consensus; that the freeing-up that worked with older, more restricted players doesn’t do much for several young players who may at this point need to steer in the opposite direction.
The problem with Harry Brook playing like a madman is that other teams have started to work out how to play against him, especially that it’s possible to bore him out by repeatedly putting the ball on a length outside off stump. Travis Head somehow has the ability to both play aggressively and produce his best innings when they matter most. The challenge for Harry is to work out he can evolve from incredibly talented and exciting youngster into someone as reliable as Travis.
To a great extent that’s just how Australia bowl and several of them do it exceptionally well. We’re not sure it’s a specific weakness of Brook’s but he’s definitely been vulnerable to several tactics that have made him visibly frustrated. There are no secrets in Test cricket, so he’s going to be up against more of that.
I think other teams may know that top of off is the best strategy but the skill, nerve, and pace needed is still top flight. I think he doesn’t need to change a thing; but the team needs a top order.
It does.
This is the issue, isn’t it? There’s not unreasonable pressure on the team to bat less madly, but (ostensible) madness is what has made Brook so fantastic and successful.
It’s almost like we should treat these people as individuals.
The best insight you’ve given me was your article from like 8 years ago when you said ‘should England both bat more cautiously and more riskily? Yes, because they are eleven people’ or somehing to that effect
This website is increasingly a place where we repeat things we’ve already said but in a far less catchy way.
The ‘gears’ metaphor is over used… But, is it not possible that players could at least switch (or be coached to switch) between two basic modes of play – let’s call them ‘charge into danger’ and ‘steady ticking over’ ?
I mean I know, as has been well explained on this website, that the first can enable the second, it’s not that simple etc. Of course, in my limited playing experience I struggled to manage ‘hit the ball’ mode. But I expect a bit better if the England team. And in the summer they seemed to manage different paces of batting with clarity and some success against India. Then it all seemed to get muddled and fall apart in Oz.
I’ve a question about booze too but we’ll leave that for now
Uterly unrelated to this post, I finally purchased myself a copy of 50 Most Ridiculous Ashes Moments via a popular book selling website not named after a South American river.
I initially held off on ordering it because I was uncertain if I would receive 0 copies or 3 copies from all from different family members desperately looking for something to purchase a middle-aged cricket obsessive. Ultimately, I ended Christmas day with 0 Ashes books but a variety of comfortable jumpers and cycling base layers.
My book arrived yesterday, and while I have had insufficient time to read the actual contents yet, my first impressions are most impressed. The writing is the as one would expect from its authors, while the full colour photos and excellent print and paper quality make it a pleasure to hold and read. Put simply, it is a £20 book that feels like one. It is everything that England’s 2025/2026 Ashes wasn’t.
Absolutely would recommend to any cricket obsessed reader.
I can whole
Grateful for that Alec – the purchase and the recommendation.
We probably should have said more about the quality of the print given that £20 is a fair outlay and that particular element explains/justifies much of the cost. Beyond picking the photos and adding captions, the book’s physical nature was out of our control, so we were very happy when it first turned up all shiny and full colour.
It would be interesting to analyse whether Brook’s high average is really built on witless swishing (but with enough ability to enjoy what in lesser fry would be an excess of good luck). It is perfectly possible that the bulk of his runs come in innings when his approach looks relatively sober, and the number of air-shots is not particularly high. I suspect the latter. Then there is the question whether the team is more successful in building a total around him when he does take a more sober approach (which is a different question from the one addressed above the line, namely whether his cavalier witless swishing sometimes gets the team over the line when sobriety is failing all around him). If the witless successful innings are also the most impactful, that could be interesting, but perhaps even more interesting is if it is the sober successful innings that are impactful. The latter is unlikely to be true, of course, if the threshold to his successful innnings is two or three overs of swishing, but I don’t have the impression that is so. The stat I would put money on (not having investigated) is that large scores are influential and generally soundly compiled, even if your name is Brook.
I learned today from the Lancashire CCC website that ‘[Manchester] Super Giants is more than just a cricket team – it is an emotion’
I’m not sure if I feel Super Giants about that. Although mainly because I don’t know what emotion it is. Apparently it ‘reflects the spirit of the city it represents’, which in Manchester’s case probably means ‘confident but aggrieved about infrastructure spending relative to London’. Although given that the logo is an elephant with wings, maybe ‘the city it represents’ is one with flying elephants, in which case I am none the wiser.
In my capacity as self-appointed spokesperson for Messrs Liebke & Bowden in the matter of their book, I’d like to state that The 50 Most Ridiculous Ashes Moments is more than a book – it is a force for good that has made the world a much better place.
Yes but that’s a coherent sentence with meaning, Ged. You’ll never work in advertising.