HARRY Brook admitted that the first two Tests of the Ashes series hadn’t quite gone to plan for him, conceding that his usually sharp feel for tempo and situation has deserted him at key moments. England’s vice-captain said he has struggled to strike the right balance between absorbing pressure and forcing the issue.
“It hasn’t been an ideal series,” he said two days out from the Adelaide Test. “Sometimes, I’ve got to rein it in a little bit: learn when to absorb the pressure a little bit more, and realise when the opportunity arises to put the pressure back on them. I feel like I haven’t done that as well as I usually do. I just haven’t identified those situations well enough.”
Brook explained that much of his aggression has come in response to England losing early wickets, with his intent often shaped by the need to wrest back momentum rather than play within himself. It worked in the first innings in Perth when he top-scored with a 61-ball 52, but that approach hasn’t quite paid off thereafter with scores of 0, 31 and 15 since.
“Most of the time when I’ve been overly aggressive is when we’ve lost early wickets and I’ve tried to counter-punch and put them back under pressure. I tried to do that in Perth in the first innings: I played quite nicely and gloved down the leg side.”
While Brook believes his reading of the game remains sound, he accepted that the execution which defined his early international career hasn’t quite been there in this series. He also acknowledged that two of his dismissals, caught behind driving at a back-of-a-length ball in Perth, and edging a big drive off Mitchell Starc in the first innings in Brisbane were “shocking shots.”
“I try to read situations as well as possible, and then it all depends on my execution. And so far [in this series], my execution hasn’t been as good as it has been at the start of my career.
“They were shocking shots,” Brook added. “I’ll admit that every day of the week, especially that one in Perth, it was nearly a bouncer and I tried to drive it. It was just bad batting. The one in Brisbane, I’ve tried to hit for six.”
Those moments, Brook felt, illustrated the need for greater restraint and an ability to trust rotation rather than forcing big shots. “That’s what I mean when I try to say that I need to rein it in a little bit. I can almost just take that and hit it for one and get down the other end. Whoever else is in with me at the other end can just get on strike and just keep trying to rotate.
Even so, Brook said he would not dwell on regret, only on learning from those moments. “I’ll be the first person to stand up and say that they were bad shots. I don’t regret them, but if I was there again, I would try and play it slightly differently.”
Brook, however, tipped his hat to the relentless accuracy of Australia’s bowling attack, saying they had offered very little margin for error. “You can’t take this bowling attack lightly: they very rarely miss,” he said. “You’ve got to try and create your own bad balls. Doing that might be me running down; it might be me changing my guard or whatever. Look, they don’t miss often and you’ve got to tip your hat to them sometimes. They’ve bowled really well in this series.”
Support for Brook has remained strong within the England camp, with master batter Joe Root offering a glowing endorsement of his Yorkshire teammate on the Sky Sports Cricket podcast. “He can kill teams with a whisper,” Root said. “Harry Brook is a generational player, and he is going to deliver at some point in this series. You watch out. He is a match-winner. If he gets himself in and set at some point in this series, he’s going to go and do something very special for us.” (Cricbuzz)
