Brook brilliance can’t mask issues for brittle England batting

Cliff Notes – Brook brilliance can’t mask issues for brittle England batting

• Harry Brook’s explosive 135 runs from 101 balls showcased his talent, but highlighted England’s batting fragility as they collapsed to 10 for 4 early in the innings.
• Despite Brook’s heroics, England’s recent ODI form remains concerning, with only eight wins in their last 24 matches, raising questions ahead of the upcoming Ashes series.

Brook brilliance can’t mask issues for brittle England batting

He’s done it again. Another innings in New Zealand. Another Harry Brook masterclass.

Less than a year ago, Brook played arguably his best innings in an England shirt. Arriving at the crease at 26 for 3, which soon became 43 for 4, Brook made 123 from 115 (in a Test match) at the Basin Reserve in Wellington. He hit one ball out of the stadium and into the road. It had gone over extra cover.

So where does he rank his magician’s innings in Mount Maunganui compared to his hundred at Wellington?

“Which one?” comes the reply.

Because he also made 186 on the same ground the year before. Maybe he genuinely couldn’t remember. Which somehow makes it worse.

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Brook’s 135 from 101 balls at the Bay Oval was nothing short of phenomenal. He hit 11 sixes and scored 60.53% of his team’s runs, the highest proportion that any one batter has ever contributed to an England ODI innings.

But on a day of extremes, it highlighted one man’s genius in the face of his own team’s weakness. Following the T20 series, Brook spoke of how on true surfaces, there are few teams better in the world than England. But the challenge they have is when faced with a difficult pitch, can they fight and scrap their way to a total?

Mount Maunganui was a tricky deck. And England were 10 for 4.

You can pick the caveat you want: New Zealand were also 24 for 3, so it was a new-ball wicket. Or, in isolation, each of England’s first four wickets to fall were to exceptional pieces of bowling. Zak Foulkes, in only his second ODI, was entrusted with the new ball due to a strong crosswind and his ability to extract significant swing away from the left-hander. He was close to unplayable, first spinning Ben Duckett round to take the outside edge, then boomeranging one into Joe Root, before bowling a late-tailing yorker to Jacob Bethell.

“I wasn’t expecting to open,” Foulkes said. “I didn’t think it was going to keep swinging past the tenth over. That doesn’t usually happen.”

Of the four early wickets (Jamie Smith got a good one from Matt Henry first up too), only Root was playing an attacking shot. And counter to what Brook said before, that was the issue.

“The question I would ask is, can we probably go a little bit harder?” Brook said here. “I think so. I think we can try and knock them off their lengths a little bit more and capitalise on their slightly off balls.”

Instinctively, who’s to question the man who did it so successfully and so spectacularly? But pragmatically, there’s a touch of the genius speaking on behalf of the commoners. Thierry Henry would tell you to open your body and kick it in the goal. But it doesn’t make it any easier for the rest of us. Brook played a style of innings that only he – and Jos Buttler – could dream of.

Harry Brook leaves the field at the end of England’s innings Getty Images

England’s top five consisted of four locks for the Ashes and one potential bolter in Bethell. The already stated line of attack from Australia is that they will produce lively pitches to test the defence of England and nullify their attacking instincts. On this showing, it is a sound strategy.

“It’s definitely not a cause for concern,” Brook said when asked whether another failure on a pitch that offered assistance for the bowlers was a worry. “There’s a reason they’re playing cricket for England, they’re the best four batters in the country. It’s just one of them days where a couple of them got nice balls.

“You’ve got three Test batters in the top-three. Rooty, Duckett and Smith didn’t come off but on another day they all get 30 and we’re off to a hell of a start.”

If any further confirmation was needed that whatever’s about to happen in Australia, it will happen quickly, this was it.

Away from the batters, Brydon Carse furthered his reputation in an England shirt with an excellent spell of bowling that claimed the wickets of Will Young, Kane Williamson and Tom Latham. Both Young and Latham were beaten for pace and dismissed bowled and lbw respectively, while Williamson got a lifting delivery that he edged through to Buttler for a golden duck – the first of his ODI career.

Carse’s spell, along with Luke Wood claiming the wicket of Rachin Ravindra, gave England hope in a cause that even with Brook’s effort seemed lost.

“I was thinking ‘bloody hell, if we get two more wickets here now, Santner comes out and it’s a completely different game’,” Brook said.

“Carse was awesome. It was one of them pitches where as a tall bowler you probably get the most out of it. He was hitting the pitch hard and getting a bit of bounce. To get Kane Williamson out first ball put them under serious pressure and the first few overs were a really good start. It’s good signs moving forward.”

Already a shoo-in in both the white-ball formats, it is increasingly hard to imagine England walking out in Perth without Carse in their XI.

In all, it was another ODI defeat for England, who have now won just eight of their last 24 fixtures. Such is way with the ICC rankings, failure to automatically qualify for the 2027 World Cup remains a distant and unlikely disaster, but even with a full-strength XI, the ODI format clicking for a wildly talented group remains elusive.

England’s batters got a taste of what may be to come in the Ashes. And England supporters blearily checking the scorecard first thing in the morning, might just have to.