Why Harry Brook, outlandish everyman, must be England's next Test captain

I have this friend who I love. We’ve played cricket together since we were 11. We’ve watched several thousand hours of Test cricket together, travelled to far-flung places (Edgbaston, Trent Bridge) to see it live. Before he got fat and lazy, he was the best captain I played under.

I have more respect for his views on the game than I do for many international players I’ve dealt with, in part because he truly cares, and we both know that you have to burn for this stuff to really feel it. Our conversations sometimes take the form of waiting to see what position the other takes up, and then I’ll say something like, if I gave you ruled paper, you’d write the other way, and he’ll tell me to get stuffed. We’ve never fallen out over stuff, we’re men after all. But Harry Brook is testing us. Harry Brook is pushing us close.

My friend thinks he needs to go away and learn how to bat in Test cricket, and I think he’s doing just fine. He thinks he’s brainless, and I think that’s unfair. He thinks he’s spent a year demeaning his talent, and I think that’s a misrepresentation. He thinks I’m a soppy apologist, and I sometimes think he’s right.

I’m writing this on the morning of a World Cup semi-final football match and it feels apt to be thinking about Brook right now, when by 10pm tonight, after a few arbitrary, luck-infused moments have fallen one way or another, those footballers will be deified or vilified with no space in between.

Perhaps, by the way, it was always like this, and social media is less a cause than an outlet; one reader, hearing me – and prepare to be shocked here – ‘over-romanticise the past’ on a recent podcast, pointed me to David Peace’s book Munich, about the Manchester United air disaster, and the stories of newspapermen invading the hospital in Germany to grab pictures of the wounded and the dying, and the hundreds of fans writing poison pen letters to one of the survivors, Dennis Viollet, because they felt he shouldn’t play in the FA Cup final v Bolton. No keyboard hackers back then, he said, but plenty of biro warriors.

A quick correction/clarification, then: last summer Brook makes two hundreds and a 99 against India to be named Player of the Series, after which he is No.1 in the world rankings. He receives his award, nonetheless, bashfully, muttering how he’s “devastated” to get out at the clutch point of the fourth innings at The Oval, his dismissal precipitating the collapse that would leave England – having played the game with 10 men – six runs shy of their highest ever run-chase.

Then comes the Ashes, where he plays a couple of bad shots, gets strangled a couple of times, wins one Test match by being outlandish, finishes with 125 sickeningly unfulfilled runs at Sydney – 78 not out overnight at stumps on the first day, just get it done! – and is still looking for his first Ashes hundred. It’s not good enough. It’s not commensurate with his ‘gifts’. It’s also much less bad than the perception would have it.

Playing Australia – his bête noire, remember, his kryptonite – Brook averages 39.77. Blunt comparison alert: after 11 Ashes Tests, Ricky Ponting, at the same age as Brook, averaged 36.

Still, we demanded change, so against New Zealand in the now fateful ‘same guys, new guise’ series, Brook tries to play more ‘responsibly’, whatever that means, makes three half-centuries, looks at his best and most secure when playing audaciously at The Oval (33-balls for his fifty), and finishes a single digit behind Travis Head at No.2 in the rankings list. Across six dismissals in that series, there is one entirely risible shot – you know the one, on that surreal evening at Trent Bridge, right at the death of all deaths.

A month later, after playing out of his boots to guide England to No.1 in T20 cricket, Brook stands as the only player in the world in the top 10 of the rankings for all three formats. Not bad for a liability.

And so we’re back again at the old adage, that in English cricket it’s OK to fail, so long as you do it the right way, head down, with a straightish bat. Take that Oval chase against India – it’s Brook who gets nailed, but isn’t Joe Root’s wafty dab to slip with less than 40 needed not just as culpable?

Duty reveals itself in different ways. We need Brook just as much as he needs us, and here he is, refusing other offers, banned from the IPL for prioritising England, a multi-format ever-present trying to stay sane as the game yanks him every which way but loose. There are some who feel that that lamentable night in Wellington when he got larruped by a nightclub bouncer precludes him from taking charge of an England team. Thankfully my friend isn’t one of them. While acknowledging that drink is probably not Brook’s friend, here’s a prediction (deep breath): we won’t hear another peep from after-hours Brook from here on in.

Something else about geniuses, for the word is bandied around about him, and used as a stick: they are often isolated figures, even paranoic, remote from the mortals around them. The last true batting genius to play for England was, well, a problem. Brook though is loved by his teammates. Listen to what they say. Read Will Jacks in this magazine. Brook has pulled off a rare trick for a cricketer – he’s both everyman and genius, all at once.

So, here’s my position: he has to be the next Test captain. If it means taking one of the white-ball gigs off his hands, then so be it. He’s tactically good, great under pressure, and so much in love with cricket that it hurts. It’ll kill him in the end, of course – read David Hopps in WCM99 if you have any doubts – but until then, it’s not even a debate.

Who do you want walking out next year to toss it up with Patrick Cummins? Joe? A little older, greyer, holding back the tides? Or the best player in the world in his prime? I just hope the new coach sees it the same way.

Talking of duty, now Heather Knight has gone as well. That week in 2017 remains one of my favourites in this job. The Sunday win at Lord’s, crying a bit, then sneaking into the post-match knees-up and stealing Heather’s cap off her head, before spending the Friday at the Beehive pub by The Oval with Felix White, Heather, a few others, and the actual World Cup trophy. (Earlier that day we’d seen Ben Stokes hit three sixes in a row to go to a Test hundred against South Africa but look, I’m not ready to talk about it, OK? Perhaps in time. Just leave it. I said leave it.)

That night, watching Heather work the pub garden, as Felix sat cradling the trophy, surely ranks as one of the more surreal evenings in this job. She is one of the most consequential English cricketers of the century. And, if I know her at all, just getting started.

Welcome to issue 99 of Wisden Cricket Monthly, the one where we hope not to slip on the grass in our sandshoes. What a month it’s been. I just hope we can do the chaos justice. Thanks so much for your support. Make sure you join us next month too – for the big one.

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