What About Harry?

Sport is about choices

Anybody who can bat for an entire day facing 322 deliveries and scoring 317 runs is not just super-talented but must be blessed with an abundance of patience. Anybody who can do anything for seven hours with just two meal-breaks and three drinks breaks must have a high boredom threshold and an equally impressive ability to focus their concentration.

It helps if the subject of their attention is something they enjoy and that they can do it at their own pace and on their terms. If not, distractions are more likely, the quality of work will suffer and it becomes servitude. Rebellion brews.

Harry Brook was in his element hitting cricket balls against Pakistan in Multan two years ago. The pitch had denuded the bowlers of almost any power and they quickly tired and lost interest. Harry was in his happy place and looked like he could have carried on for days until he finally departed after a partnership of 454 with Joe Root in a total of 823-7. It was brilliant, if one-sided.

Harry might be the best hitter of cricket balls in the world. He is supremely skilful. He can hit almost all of them wherever he wants to, provided it’s a fair contest. The balls must bounce consistently and not deviate off the pitch too much. Marginal movement through the air is acceptable. Anything else is not acceptable and Harry will not be party to it.

It wasn’t fair that Harry didn’t get to bat first in the third Test when Trent Bridge was more Multan than Nottingham. And, by the time the New Zealanders finally got around to giving England their final turn to bat in the series after Daryl Mitchell had been turned black and blue during a 241-ball century, Harry could see that all the fun had gone out of batting and he wasn’t having any of it. It was just so unfair.

Brook whipped his first ball for a legside six and fell over scooping his second for four. He slashed another couple of boundaries and then flicked his ninth delivery to fine leg to depart for a sulky 21. It was the most petulant innings by a grown-up in international cricket since Sunil Gavaskar blocked his way through 60 overs for 36* from 174 balls in the opening game of the 1975 World Cup against England – who had the temerity to score 334.

Even with the coach’s blessing to embarrass himself, a cricketer of Brook’s talent would surely have backed his skill against a second-string bowling attack. But skill is a different commodity to temperament and character.

Why does Harry practise his golf swing in the slips so often? Why does he do cartwheels in the outfield between overs? To entertain the crowd and keep his colleagues’ spirits up when the opposition are building a partnership, perhaps. Or is it simply because he gets bored when things aren’t going his way? That his powers of concentration only apply when he’s hitting cricket balls in predictable conditions.

When Harry was appointed England’s white ball captain, he announced that team meetings were “a complete waste of time.” He outlawed them. Never mind that some of his team mates might appreciate and even need a team meeting, Harry was having none of it. Or them. Boring.

Ben Stokes “100 percent endorsed” Harry to succeed him as Test captain. Of course he did. Harry is a good lad in the changing room, always quick with a quip and putting smiles on faces. He ‘reads’ the game well, too, especially when things are going well. Although it’s been a long time since that happened for England.

Instead of being guided and encouraged to grow up, Harry has been indulged by Brendon McCullum. The sight of the coach slapping his batting star on the back after his 21-ball nine made many viewers around the world wretch. Everyone is entitled to take the piss out whatever they choose, but lovers of Test cricket are equally entitled to find it sickening. The game belongs to all of us.

We all deserve to see the best of Harry Brook. That’s right, we deserve to. We have that right while he is selected to play Test cricket. If he chooses, with his coach’s backing, to behave like a toddler when the going gets tough, then we also reserve the right to ask him and his selectors, politely, to fuck off.

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