Follow UsHarry Brook’s start to Test career is nothing short of scintillating. Over the last three years, the 26-year-old has become the embodiment of aggressive batting in world cricket, with 2820 runs at an average of 57.55 and a strike rate of 87.52.
During this time, Brook got to his tenth Test hundred in just 30 Tests, showing incredible consistency and hunger for runs. In world cricket, there aren’t too many middle-order batters who can rival that, apart from India’s Rishabh Pant and Australia’s Travis Head.
Despite the close competition, English great Sir Geoffrey Boycott applauded Brook, hailing him as one of the great middle-order players of this generation.
“I have believed for a long time that Harry Brook could be one of the great middle-order players of this generation. Players like him do not come along too often and he could end up in the same bracket as Wally Hammond and Denis Compton, who are regarded by everybody who saw them as among England’s greatest,” Boycott wrote in his column for The Telegraph.
The English great also reckoned that he is perhaps the greatest No.5 in present-day cricket, stating that he can make ‘batting look easy’.
“Harry has that special quality of somehow making batting look easy. Let me tell you, it is not. He is tall and that gives him long levers so when he hits the ball he has a lot of power and takes the game away from bowlers without slogging. I defy anybody to tell me another No 5 in world cricket, or middle-order batsman, who has his talent, his ability to take the game by the scruff of the neck and have bowlers running in, not knowing what to bowl,” Boycott added.
Brook’s conversion rate is such that he gets a Test hundred every fifth innings, with 10 hundreds already in his 30-match-long Test career.
“Harry has a special gift and has scored 10 hundreds in 30 innings. The best players are normally one hundred in four to five innings. He is one in three. You can talk all you want about bats being bigger, and the pitches better than ever. True. I get all that. But the fact is, you have to judge people in the era they play.Technically, Brook stays back a lot like Root, giving him more time to see the ball, judge the length and let it come to him. He takes the ball at the top of the bounce and then, if it is his day, he destroys teams,” Boycott added.
However, a lot of Brook’s runs have either come at home or on flattish wickets like Pakistan and New Zealand. Brook’s biggest Test assignment thus far in his short career will come in Australia, where England have a poor Ashes record. Will Brook be able to tonk the Australian bowlers, as well?
“I don’t think he will be able to tonk Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood quite so easily. He will have a chance against Mitchell Starc because he bowls magic deliveries but also gives you a lot of four balls. I just hope Harry is going to be intelligent enough not to change his game, but just assess the situation and be a bit more careful. That is all he has to do,” Boycott added.