• Home
  • Cricket Analysis
  • How Harry Brook Crafted His First Hundred To Sink Mitchell Marshs Australia In The 3Rd Odi

How Harry Brook Crafted His First Hundred To Sink Mitchell Marsh's Australia In The 3rd ODI?

Harry Brook with a century against Australia (@englandcricket)Harry Brook with a century against Australia (@englandcricket)

Harry Brook is one of the most talented young batters in world cricket. He has already made his mark in Test cricket with some match-winning centuries under pressure, and is touted as the next big thing in English cricket. England team management also seem eager to fast track him as a leader, and with the absence of Jos Buttler, the young batter has been handed captaincy role for the high-profile ODI series against Australia.

England lost the initial two ODIs, but Harry Brook kept the positive attitude intact. The series was on line coming into Chester-le-Street and the young captain finally delivered, leading from the front and becoming the youngest English captain to score an ODI century. It was also his maiden ODI century and the unbeaten knock of 110 off 94 balls is bound to give him lot of confidence going ahead in the series.

Harry Brook came out to bat at number 4 with his team in all sorts of trouble at 11-2 in their run-chase of 305. It seemed like Australia would run away with the game just like they did in the opening two matches of the series, but Brook and Jacks stood tall. Brook mixed caution with aggression beautifully in his knock. His first boundary came on the fifth ball of his innings against Mitchell Starc and it was a lovely drive with perfect timing that would have given him a lot of confidence. 

Harry Brook Keeps England's Aggressive Approach Intact

He was kept quiet for few deliveries, after that, but Brook has time and again mention that they want to play an aggressive brand of cricket, and the captain who was batting on six off 13 balls, made his intentions clear against Hazlewood in the ninth over by smashing the ball through extra cover region by coming down the track. After that shot, Harry Brook kept finding boundaries at regular intervals, and the pressure was taken off the home team with both the batters looking comfortable in the middle.

The quality of Brook's knock was how he played across the ground against variety of bowlers. He drove beautiful drives off full deliveries and whenever the Aussies went short, he did not shy away from using his backfoot play. Harry Brook got to his fifty in 54 balls and started to up the ante even further after his half-century. 

Brook also lost Will Jacks and Jamie Smith in the process, but kept going for his shots with great ease and ended up hitting his century with a boundary towards third man against Starc off just 87 balls. Brook has the tendency of making room and hitting the ball towards the off-side and it was used quite cleverly and effectively by the young batter in the third ODI.

Brook's Century Help England Keep Series Alive

Eventually, rain stopped the game in the 38th over and did not let cricket take centrestage again, but England were well ahead at that time and won the game by 46 runs courtesy of a DLS method. Brook hit 13 fours and two sixes in his knock and with the kind of talent he has, the cricketing world are sure to witness lot more of these match-winning centuries from the Yorkshire boy.