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No English should savor the move from India to Pakistan more than Harry Brook. The change under the conditions will distance Brook from the nation that he succeeded in the worst to the one who saw his best.
Brook’s three years as an international cricket player established it as a rare gift drummer. However, he showed a curious propensity to oscillate between the magnificent and the mediocre. It was never more true than on each side of the Radcliffe line.
In September 2022, Brook arrived in Pakistan after playing only five internationals. During the T20I series of seven games, a series of daring rounds – the most spectacularly, a ball of 35 balls and undefeated in the third match – gave an opinion of the qualities of Brook, establishing its place at the T20 World Cup . Barely two months later, Brook then hit Pakistan in red ball cricket, looting three centuries in consecutive tests. Brook marked his return to Pakistan last October with 317 in Multan; Half of his eight centuries of testing were in the country. In 16 international rounds in all formats in Pakistan, Brook makes an absurd 83 on average.
Such a shine was lacking through the border. While Brook scored a century in his first Indian Premier League campaign in 2023, he only reached 90 points on his other 10 sleeves, ending the season with three ducks in four sleeves. These difficulties continued during subsequent Brook trips to India. During the 2023 World Cup, when he described himself as “learning at work” in 50 format, Brook on average 28.2. In eight rounds through the recent T20 series and ODI in England in India, Brook only gathered 141 points.
The abyss between Brook’s file so far in India and Pakistan embodies a career which, apart from the English coasts, was one of the extremes. In England, Brook was coherent but often wasted from departures: he only converted one of his seven scores of 50+ into home test cricket in a century.
Far from home, Brook test yields were spectacular. In 11 games, on average 80, with seven centuries. Each of these tests was in Pakistan or New Zealand and generally played on flat counters. In the few tests on less mild locations, Brook yields were quite spectacular. When Pakistan kissed the dry, turning the counters in the last two tests in October, Brook struck 9, 16, 5 and 26, falling twice to turn the twins Sajid Khan and Noman Ali. In Hamilton in December, on land with more rebound than during the first two tests, Brook fell for 0 and 1, the two times rejected by the burning rhythm of Will O’Rourke.
In Australia, Brook has so far only played T20 matches. In 16 games – Seven in The Big Bash and Neuf for England – Brook has succumbed several times by trying to clear the large Australian borders and on average 8.07. There is a considerable attenuation for this lamentable record: Brook struck in the middle order in each round of this country, a notoriously volatile berth in T20, and is a much more complete player.
However, for all these warnings, Brook’s embryonic record in Australia is in accordance with his experience of playing abroad: he tends to flourish or waded, with little between the two. The question is whether it owes a simple random or special features in his game.
The astonishing record of Brook in New Zealand and Pakistan illustrates his prowess on the real counters, when he can trust the rebound. His difficulties in India and Australia have shown vulnerabilities by fighting the two challenges reserved for drummers in the upper ladder of the game: Mystery Spin, especially on the tracks and the high pace.
In the T20 series in India, Brook has fallen every five times to lovers of Ravi Bishnoi and Varun Chakravarthy legs. Lack of a reliable method to accumulate, Brook used the attempt to clean the strings. “Faced with the rotation in Cricket T20 is probably the most difficult thing in the game,” said Brook. “Maybe I have to master a little, but we will see. I think I have a method. It’s just to try to do it in a coherent way and more often.
In the ODIs, India then borrowed from the O’Rourke model against Brook. Harshit Rana took a stream for a duck with a bouncer in Nagpur, and returned it to the following two Odi. While the high hands of Brook are considered to make him vulnerable to the fast bouncers – a barely unique defect for him – he behaved better against this line of attack than extreme rotation. It has an average of 40.3 in the ashes of 2023, when Australia has often used the short ball.
Brook must now be prepared for these twin attack methods in the champions trophy and the series of imminent tests at home in India and Australia. Whenever he goes out in the stick, Brook can expect to be met by the fastest launcher of an opponent, their best spinner – or both. The way he reacts will greatly contribute to the definition of the year of England.
