The Ashes fifth Test day one recap: Buy the ticket, take the Harry Brook ride. Just imagine if he ever works out Test cricket

2 months ago 18

In a previous, thoroughly unproductive batting life, Harry Brook scored just 113 runs from 14 innings in Australia.

The miserable run stemmed from a BBL guest stint with the Hobart Hurricanes and the 2022 T20 World Cup, and afterwards Brook noted that Australia’s significantly bigger boundaries contributed to him regularly holing out in the deep.

Seemingly in complete control on 45 on day one at the SCG on Sunday, with England cruising at 3-154 after lunch, Brook did his utmost to fall in the same fashion.

Mitchell Starc banged in three consecutive short balls to Brook, and he top-edged the least threatening of them. Every man and his dog at a sold-out SCG knew the bouncers were coming. Only good fortune guided Brook’s miscue between the three converging from behind square leg.

Stuart Broad’s reaction in the Channel Seven commentary box said just as much as an incredulous Mark Waugh on Fox, who wasn’t wrong with a head-shaking: “That should’ve been out. He’s got to learn. He’s better than that.”

A parallel to the way Waugh himself played was duly made by his co-commentators: stylish and exquisite when those flicks and glances raced to the boundary; lazy and irresponsible when they went to hand.

When Cameron Green took up the short-ball tactics to Brook for the home side, he did so with five fielders on the rope, all of them from forward square leg to a wide third man.

The English vice-captain still hooked a ball some 15 rows back over fine leg, with the shot immediately compared to the Big Bash hitting of David Warner the previous evening.

With the light fading, Brook still looked to ramp a Green bouncer over the slips when he’d moved to 77, threatening to edge through to Alex Carey with an early tea in the offing.

Buy the ticket, take the Harry Brook ride?

Certainly seems that way – for now at least. And you could never accuse it of being boring.

Whether such a mercurial batting approach can endure for someone in a leadership role, is a fair question.

Just a couple of headlines from the English press this tour – “Infuriating Harry Brook needs to work out how to play Test cricket and fast” and “Harry Brook’s witless self-destruction sums him and England up”′ – capture the repercussions of when his approach goes wrong quite nicely.

Heaven help him underneath the pile-on if Ben Stokes’ body gives out and Brook gets himself out charging, swiping, reverse-sweeping or smiting.

Harry Brook (left) and Joe Root combined for long-overdue runs in the middle order.

The prospect of him returning to the Ashes as a batsman well-rounded by the lessons of this tour, and some of these dismissals, is ominous for Australian bowlers. And just as enticing for anyone looking to be entertained.

Brook is ranked second on the ICC’s dubious world Test batting rankings and has scored 3130 runs at almost 56 in his first three years of Test cricket.

It seems trite to ask it until you consider his body of dismissals this summer. Imagine the damage Brook will inflict when he works out the balance of Test batting?

Here and now, with the series long decided and Brook already admitting to a couple of “shocking shots” before the Adelaide Test, he combined with Joe Root for England’s biggest partnership of the summer.

Did it with ease too, aside from when he looked intent on tossing his wicket away. As was the danger in Australia going without a spinner for the first time in 138 years at the SCG, Brook made the all-seam attack look all the same as the day wore on.

As expected on the opening day, the most-scrutinised pitch since Boxing Day offered enough for the fast bowlers to do damage.

Each of England’s wickets fell to smart Australian approaches. Starc exploited Ben Duckett’s dodgy backswing, which chops from off to leg, to have him nicking off.

Zak Crawley was trapped in front by Michael Neser and Scott Boland’s ball to dismiss Jacob Bethell was the pick of the litter – angling across the precocious No.3 and leaving him for dead.

But as Root and Brook went to work, Starc lacked his usual rhythm. Australia were too straight to Brook and Green especially offered a boundary ball each over as he went at more than a run a ball.

In short, Australia looked like they could have used a spinner, at the very least, to offer something different and change the pace of the contest in the same way their short-ball tactics briefly threatened.

Whether Todd Murphy truly would have found success against Brook and Root is another fair question, given the former averages 63 against spin, a figure bolstered by a small mountain of runs on Pakistani highways.

But of those 14 T20 innings Brook batted in his first introduction to Australia, nine of those dismissals for next to nothing came against spin.

And at the very least, whenever Brook bats, the bowler is well and truly in the game.

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