Brook channels best of Yorkshire icons Root and Bairstow

Fearless batsman signals arrival on Test stage with dominant century that suggests he is here to stay

In 15 Tests across 2021, England had just two different centurions. Joe Root made six, and Rory Burns one.

This year has been rather better, with eight batsmen scoring hundreds. On the first day alone at Rawalpindi there were four. And unlike Root and Burns, all four are in their twenties, reaffirming the sense that a new generation of English batting is flowering.

Harry Brook was the last to reach the milestone. He is also the youngest of the four, and got to his hundred quickest, in terms of balls faced: 80, behind only Gilbert Jessop (76 in 1902) and Jonny Bairstow (77 at Trent Bridge last summer), in the list of England’s fastest. Perhaps it is no coincidence that Brendon Mccullum, the puppeteer, has three faster Test hundreds than Brook: from 54, 74 and 78 balls.

Even at just 23 and playing his second Test, Brook was made to wait for this. There was much excitement when he broke into the Yorkshire team. But the returns were not instant and when Covid struck he was 21 and had a firstclass average in the mid-20s. He returned strongly from the enforced break and has produced three excellent seasons since.

Having carried drinks all summer, an opportunity in this side emerged only when Bairstow suffered his freak leg fracture in September. By that point, it was not just in Yorkshire – or in the longest form – that he was considered the coming man. In Rawalpindi, he absolutely confirmed that status.

Brook has a wonderfully straightforward manner. Ben Stokes joked before his Test debut that he was “a bit dumb”. But the simplicity with which he approaches his life and cricket has been on full display since he arrived in Pakistan.

Brook makes all of England’s squads right now so, after being parachuted in for that Test debut at the Kia Oval in September, he headed off to Pakistan for seven Twenty20s, where he thrived, then the World Cup in Australia. His form tailed off on bouncier wickets, but he won a medal.

Afterwards, England told him to head home – literally. He had bought himself a house in late summer, but had not had time to move in, so was afforded a short break to do so. That meant he missed “Bazfest” in Abu Dhabi: a week of socialising and warm-up cricket. You would never have known it; not only did he look in prime form, but he oozed confidence. Perhaps that is because he is rested and, in his words, was “one of the very few” who has remained healthy as a virus spread in recent days.

Brook strolled out in a wonderful position, 286 for three, but could not have played the situation better. He ticked over in Ollie Pope’s slipstream, reaching 50 from 52 balls, showing only a couple of moments of real aggression. Both, though, displayed his fearless nature: first,

launching the spinner over mid-off for his first boundary, then rocking back and pulling six in the over before tea.

He looked like a player who understood the conditions he was playing in, because he does. England may not have played a Test in Pakistan for 17 years, but Brook has starred in the Pakistan Super League, and in the T20 series against them; across the international formats.

“The pitches from that experience have always been slow, low and skiddy,” he said. “Today was the same as a T20 pitch. Whether that will change throughout the match, I don’t know.”

Passing fifty with the light drawing in, Brook recognised the chance to accelerate, possibly not wanting to sleep on a maiden century. His eyes lit up at the arrival of Saud Shakeel’s part-time spin, which he took for six fours in an over.

“They were all bad balls, and I just tried to put them away,” he said with a smile. “I was always going to try to put the sixth one away. I was probably happier with that over than my hundred, to be honest.”

Brook showed the gears he possesses and lessons learnt from Root and Bairstow, the two most recent outstanding batsmen from Yorkshire. He does not have Root’s poise or Bairstow’s power, but his game perhaps sits neatly in a Venn diagram of theirs.

Brook is standing in at No5 for Bairstow, who is a certainty to return when fit because of his extraordinary impact this summer. The challenge for the youngster is to make himself impossible to leave out when that time comes – and this was the perfect start.

To that end, the trouble for Brook – but not England – is that three others made the perfect start, too.

First Test For latest reports from the Pindi Stadium – go to telegraph. co.uk

in the Nottingham Test against Australia. Trent Bridge was a belter, as usual, Australia selected only one pace bowler, but the main difference between then and now was the over-rate. The strike rate of Crawley and Duckett as they posted 174 without loss was surely far higher than the 169 achieved by Charlie Barnett and Len Hutton, although the number of balls they faced went unrecorded.

Barnett was a Gloucestershire amateur who could afford to bat as he liked: “Some of his drives off the back foot were splendidly executed,” Wisden recorded. Barnett reached 98 by lunch and made life at the other end much easier for Hutton, who was playing his first Test against Australia. Just as in

Rawalpindi, England in that 1938 Test carried on scoring after Barnett and Hutton – who, like Crawley and Duckett, both made centuries – were dismissed. Indeed, four England batsmen scored a Test hundred for the first time in one innings, but they needed more than a single day, unlike their modern quartet. England took 188 overs to reach 658 for eight declared, well under four runs an over.

England batted through 31 maiden overs in that 1938 Test innings, but in 2022 allowed Pakistan to bowl only three maiden overs on day one. Dot balls became almost as rare as the old-fashioned maiden. “Unique” is used too often, but this is what England’s batting was on day one: it has no precedent.