A family issue meant that I missed some of England’s first innings at the Oval, but social media kept me updated and suddenly my timeline was full of exasperation at Harry Brook. What had he done? Well, I soon discovered that he had charged at only his second ball of the innings — from Mohammed Siraj — attempted a big shot over extra cover and was a little fortunate that the inside edge skirted past leg stump for four.
What’s more, soon afterwards, with the wicketkeeper now standing up to the stumps, down the wicket he went again to the same bowler and scythed over cover.
Risky? Yes, but how risky? The common wisdom is that advancing to a seamer with the wicketkeeper up is too dangerous, but that’s what batsmen do all the time to spinners, so why not to seamers, especially accurate ones when you know where the ball is likely to pitch? It may appear to be inverted logic but the best bowlers are actually the easiest ones against which to take chances.
Brook loses his bat — and his wicket – in trying one big shot too many against Akash Deep
JAVIER GARCIA/SHUTTERSTOCK EDITORIAL
We are talking risk and reward here, which lies at the heart of the Bazball beliefs, with England having redefined what risk means and what it looks like. Every stroke carries some element of risk, but the broader range of options into which batsmen can dip these days means that our perceptions — and especially our censure when things go wrong — have to alter with them.
It is a particularly pertinent subject in the aftermath of the Oval Test simply because, after four pancake pitches, this was a pitch that at last interested the seam bowlers with its movement and bounce, as well as there being swing in the air when the clouds rolled in.
Batting was tough, but England were at their best when staying truest to their Bazball ideology, not least when the openers — Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley — were putting on 92 at more than seven runs an over in the first innings. Brook was just taking up that mantle of positivity when he arrived at the crease.
The more difficult the conditions, the more risks Bazball demands. Yes, you must absorb pressure at times too — and that has always been a stated tenet — but, when the ball is moving as much as it was regularly at the Oval, some pressure simply has to be put back on the bowlers. They cannot be permitted to just plough their intended furrow on a good length.
Brook does the hard part on his way to scoring 111 off 98 balls at the Oval
KIRSTY WIGGLESWORTH/AP
In days gone by, batsmen would have simply looked to survive such periods. Some lesser-regarded players might have had a swing and a bit of fun until the ball emblazoned with their name arrived but there was rarely any thought given by top-order players to hit a bowler off his length.
That is what England try to do now. It is smart cricket. That is what Duckett did in only the fourth over of the first innings when reverse-sweeping (it was more than a scoop) Akash Deep for six. It is what even Joe Root, the most orthodox of England’s batsmen, does when he advances down the pitch, often to clip to leg to add to his super-strength of pouncing on the tiniest bit of width of any length outside off stump.
It is what Brook does when he runs down the pitch and hits through or over extra cover. That is his shot. Of course, it is also the shot to which he eventually fell in the second innings after his stunning century, a moment on which the match turned, and for which Brook has been slated in some quarters.
But, according to the Sky Sports statistician Benedict Bermange, that is the only time in Test cricket that Brook has been dismissed playing that particular stroke. He has played it on 36 occasions and scored 97 runs from it, with six sixes and 13 fours.
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Seems worth the risk to me. In Brook’s mind it is probably relatively low-risk. What many old-fashioned observers struggle with is the idea of it being predetermined. Test cricket used to be about playing the ball on its merits and nothing else, but T20 has changed all that and Brook brings his learnings from the shortest game to bear in the longest one. As Ricky Ponting, the shrewdest of batting minds out there, says: “He reads the bowler really well. He actually bats in a Test match how you would try and read a bowler in a T20.”
It was no surprise that Ponting predicted that Brook would charge the ball he fell to in that second innings, simply because the ball before from Deep had been short and pulled for four. A bowler will always then look to bowl a fuller length.
Do not expect Brook to shelve the shot any time soon, as Root has done with his reverse-ramp, which we did not see at all this summer, having last played it in New Zealand last year. He has tried it 29 times in Tests and made 67 runs from it, and has been dismissed three times, with the infamous one by Jasprit Bumrah stinging him hard.
Brook is a very different type of Yorkshireman, though. As he said about his second-innings dismissal at the Oval: “At the time I was obviously very confident. If I’d have got a quick 30 off the next two overs, then the game is done. That was my thought process. I always try and take the game on and put them under immense pressure.”
His strike rate of 87.52 is the highest in the history of Test cricket for those with 2,000 runs or more. And in second place with 86.14? Duckett.
It was telling that after the Oval match Brendon McCullum, England’s head coach, singled out Brook’s innings of only 23 from 19 balls in the second innings of the victory at Lord’s, dismissed by Deep from a sweep shot described by Kumar Sangakkara as “arrogance”, as typifying the sort of bravery he wants his batsmen to show, as conditions were tricky and it was always going to be a low-scoring innings.
Frustratingly for him, and indeed England supporters, once Brook was out in the second innings at the Oval the bravery disappeared, and did not reappear on the fifth morning either. England looked like they wanted to be positive but did so only half-heartedly, with Jacob Bethell and Jamie Smith glaring culprits-in-chief in that respect.
McCullum will not be putting the shackles on his most swashbuckling players any time soon
GARETH COPLEY/GETTY
“When we move away from our style of cricket, that is when we become vulnerable,” McCullum said. “If we stay true to what we believe in, backing it, and almost double down on the philosophy, it gives us our greatest opportunity.
“It is hard to say that when you have lost the last Test, but throughout I thought the changing room was growing and was understanding that when we play our style, it gives us our greatest chance. It doesn’t guarantee anything but it gives us our greatest chance.”
Bazball has been dissed as only possible on flat pitches, with Brook and Crawley in particular criticised in that respect, so even in defeat the Oval was an important stepping stone to this winter’s Ashes, given that the pitches down under, and indeed the Kookaburra balls being used (possessing prouder seams for much longer), may be very different from before.
Steve Smith had said this to BBC Sport before the Oval Test: “Their batters are going to be challenged a little bit differently to the wickets they have had over in England for a while, which have looked pretty flat and good for batting. The wickets in Australia in the last three or four years have been very tricky for top-order batters. It is going to be a good challenge for them.”
And, frankly, it will be an even bigger challenge for Australia’s top order, because it really does need saying that it doesn’t take much to trouble them at the moment. Their top three is about as settled as a hyperactive puppy.
Indeed, have England faced their hardest opponent already this year? Now, that really is stirring the pot, but it is certainly “running towards the danger”, Bazball-style.