Harry Brook has grown into the England captaincy role, says Gavin Hamilton
AS Australia tie themselves up in knots over sandpaper once more, as though the original scandal was not sufficiently embarrassing, England had quietly – and unusually – slipped under the radar in the build-up to Friday’s one-day series opener in Perth.
Instead, the “Noosa” has been tightening around the necks of those involved in what might be termed the Cape Town cover-up of 2018, following claims by new best-selling author Usman Khawaja that knowledge of the plot to tamper with the ball extended well beyond Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft, the three players at whom the book was thrown.
One man who will not be disappointed by the sudden switch of focus – perhaps unprecedented when an England cricket team is Down Under – is Harry Brook.
The captain, who has had his own share of avoidable situations to deal with in recent times, can surely not believe his luck as England face up to three one-day internationals and five T20s, looking to put behind them a disappointing tri-series in Pakistan.
Moreover, according to former Scotland and England all-rounder Gavin Hamilton, now Yorkshire’s general manager of cricket, Brook has grown increasingly comfortable in his captaincy role and has started to show why he was entrusted with it in the first place.
The tri-series, it should not be forgotten, was a blemish on an otherwise successful few months for Brook and his men, who had won three successive series, each decided by the final match. The general trend had been one of improvement.
“I think Harry has very much grown as a leader,” Hamilton told The Yorkshire Post.
“I think he speaks very well now, and you see it as well in his body language on the field.
“I think he’s finding his way in the job, which was always going to take time, and more importantly it’s not affected his form with the bat.
"I think he’s that character that will play how he wants to play, but he’s fine-tuning his game now around game situations, which just shows how much he’s maturing while still managing to dominate the bowlers as well.”
The numbers suggest that Hamilton is right. Brook’s form while captaining England in one-day internationals is striking – 1,278 runs from 27 innings at an average of 53.25.
He has passed fifty in exactly one-third (nine) of those innings, converting three into hundreds and one into a double hundred – his English record 202 against Sri Lanka in Rawalpindi last month.
Without the armband, Brook’s record is 504 runs from 21 innings at an average of 25.20. The responsibility of captaincy appears to rest well with the 27-year-old.
“I think as well it will be a lot different captaining in Australia,” Hamilton said.
“Pakistan, as we saw in the tri-series, is a tough place to captain because the pitches are so good, and batters are so good, that you can find yourself getting criticised for field placings and potentially end up chasing the game.
“You half get led into it in the subcontinent, in my opinion, but I think it will be different in Australia.
“I think Harry will be able to dictate far more as a captain in those conditions, and hopefully he and the team will go well.”
It promises to be an interesting series. England have plenty to prove as they look to hit back from a tri-series in which they were expected to reach the final at least.
Australia are without several of their leading bowlers, resting ahead of the New Zealand Tests. Who knows, they might get the chance to catch up on a little DIY at home.
“I think both teams are still sort of trying to work out who their best 13, 14 players are,” Hamilton added.
“Australia are certainly not to be feared, but Australia in Australia… they’re always tough to beat, they always seem to find a way, and they’re often brilliant in their own conditions. I think more pressure will be on England on the back of the tri-series and the fact that they were expecting much better results.
“So, I think there will be pressure on them to get this right, or certainly to show improvement given that they are building towards next year’s World Cup, but Australia is the best place to do that because you’re under pressure right from ball one and it’s the best place in the world to find out character and who can perform under that pressure.”
One man on whom Brook can no doubt rely is Joe Root, playing his 200th ODI on Friday. Both men dead-batted sandpaper-related questions before the game, saying that England are focused on themselves.
Quite right, too.
While Australia remain preoccupied with the ghosts of Cape Town, Brook has a rather more pressing target: turning England’s promise into something more tangible.
With the next World Cup starting in less than a year, there can be few better places to discover whether he and his side are primed to prosper.