At the Oval 20 years ago, England led 2-1 at the end of a wildly oscillating five-match series. In their second innings, the host’s No 5 arrived at a fraught moment and then summoned an innings of swagger and dazzling skill.
Kevin Pietersen’s 158 against Australia will forever remain one of English cricket’s most cherished Test innings: a monument of clean-striking chutzpah that regained the Ashes. At the same ground two decades on, Harry Brook produced a worthy encore.
In the fourth innings, rather than the third as Pietersen was, Brook knew that the equation was simple. He arrived at 106-3; England would either score another 268 runs or be defeated.
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In 2005, Pietersen arrived with 16.1 overs until lunch; Brook’s arrival came with just 10.3 overs until the same interval. Yet while Pietersen waited until the second session to unfurl his full assault, Brook saw no need to delay his attack.
Brook’s initial treatment of Akash Deep foreshadowed the violence to come. From his 19th ball, Brook pulled Deep off the front foot through midwicket. Now, Brook doubled down – charging down the wicket and drilling Deep over cover for six. In isolation, it was a staggering shot; the impact was amplified by the reality that England still needed another 244 runs to win.
Twenty years ago, Pietersen was dropped at slip by Shane Warne, 15 runs into his epic 158. Brook, too, was abetted by early fortune. On 19, he pulled Prasidh Krishna into the hands of Mohammed Siraj at fine leg. But as Siraj snaffled the ball, his right leg clipped the boundary rope, earning Brook six runs.
Yet if the underlying approaches, and a healthy dollop of luck, were common threads in these two Oval classics, there was one crucial difference. That day against Australia, Pietersen needed a pep-talk at lunch, from captain Michael Vaughan, to remind him of how to play. “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, what am I going to do here?’” Pietersen later said. Vaughan told him to “keep swinging”.
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This time, Brook had no such uncertainty. His entire Test career has come under the Brendon McCullum-Ben Stokes regime. All the while, he has been liberated to explore the full range of his talents.
Pietersen did not always have such clarity. After Duncan Fletcher left as head coach, in 2007, Pietersen was often uncertain about how much risk England would tolerate in his Test batting. Notoriously, he was vociferously criticised in the changing room by batting coach Graham Gooch after being caught at long off at Perth in 2013.
“I got abused so much by the coaching staff for getting out caught on the boundary,” Pietersen told me recently. “It was almost playing with a hand tied behind your back. A lot of people say, ‘You would have loved playing under Brendon’.”
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In isolation, Brook’s dismissal at the Oval looked as egregious as any in Pietersen’s career. Revved-up, Brook backed away to the leg side and charged down the wicket to Deep. As he shaped to swipe Deep across the line, Brook lost control of his bat. The ball looped up to Siraj at extra cover, the bat to square leg: a scene of incompetence unbefitting for one of the world’s best batsmen.
This might yet be seen as the moment that England squandered control of the Test match. But England will not focus on the farcical end to Brook’s innings. Instead, they will focus on the brutal brilliance that came before.
Brook is a thrilling combination of the premeditated and instinctive. Such range allowed him by turns to use his feet to back away and carve Krishna over point, then to retain complete balance as he thrashed drives through the covers and plundered short balls off the front and back foot alike.
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Brook’s 10th Test hundred, reorienting the game in 91 balls, might well have been his best yet. His unusually emotional celebration, leaping for joy, seemed to recognise as much.
This 111 secured Brook’s entry into an elite club, which has eluded even Steve Smith: of Test players who have made great fourth innings centuries. Until the Oval, Brook had floundered in the fourth innings, averaging only 18.9.
Brook’s counter-attack illustrated how No 5 has become the prime spot for a side’s most destructive batsman. In an era when the new ball often offers appreciable movement, but then swiftly softens and becomes far more conducive for batting, Travis Head and Rishabh Pant both relish batting at five.
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Yet not even this pair have quite matched Brook so far in his Test career. Brook now averages 57.5 in 30 Tests. Only six men – Don Bradman, Herbert Sutcliffe, Ken Barrington, Everton Weekes, Wally Hammond and Garry Sobers – have played as many Tests and averaged more. And Brook has plundered runs with such regularity while scoring at a strike rate of 87, the fastest of anyone with 500 Test runs.
Whatever the final day brings at the Oval, Brook’s penchant for the exasperating should not obscure how extraordinary he is.
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