According to CricViz, Brook’s outrageous opening shot was just the 11th time in the history of T20\/100-ball cricket where a batter has scooped their first ball of the innings for six.<\/p>\n
The other player to have achieved the same feat in The Hundred was Steve Eskinazi for Welsh Fire off Southern Brave’s Craig Overton in 2023.<\/p>\n
When asked about the shot, Brook told Sky Sports he “just fancied it” and “backed myself” to execute it.<\/p>\n
“I haven’t had any plans,” he added. “I have hit my first ball for four or six three times in the comp and I haven’t had a plan to do that.”<\/p>\n
That it came off former New Zealand international Southee, who was engaged as England’s bowling coach this summer, added an extra element of intrigue.<\/p>\n
There will doubtless be some gentle ribbing to come for Southee from England’s limited-overs captain.<\/p>\n
Brook’s eye-catching shot – which travelled 36 metres – even prompted a particularly bold declaration from former England fast bowler Stuart Broad.<\/p>\n
“He might just be the best batter we’ve ever produced you know, Harry Brook. Big shout so I don’t say it lightly,” Broad said on X.<\/p>\n
It seemed scandalous, though, that Brook only faced 14 balls, potentially depriving the Headingley crowd of both entertainment and more runs towards the Superchargers total.<\/p>\n
Michael Pepper, who batted at number three, had struggled early on to hit the ball cleanly, while Brook was sat watching him chew up deliveries.<\/p>\n
A couple of lusty blows got Pepper’s strike-rate up to 133.33 when he was out for a 21-ball 28, but that was still way below Brook’s 221.42.<\/p>\n
It raised the interesting question of whether Superchargers coach Andrew Flintoff might have considered asking Pepper to retire out?<\/p>\n
It would have been a controversial step, but not one without precedent in The Hundred.<\/p>\n
In fact there have been three instances: Sam Billings, Wayne Madsen and Imad Wasim all retired out during the 2024 tournament.<\/p>\n
Even if he likes batting at four, Brook should consider moving himself up a place for their next match.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"According to CricViz, Brook’s outrageous opening shot was just the 11th time in the history of T20\/100-ball cricket…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-70346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}