Former captain Nasser Hussain appears to be utterly impressed with batter Harry Brook’s start to his England career. Part of England’s ICC T20 World Cup-winning campaign last month, Brook has played 20 T20Is and three Test matches till date.
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It is the latter where Brook has made the most of opportunities scoring two centuries and a half-century across five innings. The fact that all his 50+ scores in Test cricket have come away from home have further upped his reputation especially ahead of Ashes 2023 at home.
One of the commentators during the ongoing Pakistan vs England Test series, Hussain appreciated Brook’s ability of keeping things simple with respect to his batting. Playing in what appears to be a special era for England’s Test team under captain Ben Stokes and head coach Brendon McCullum, Hussain opined on the lines of Brook being an apt fit for this squad.
Considering his recent success as an affirmative sign ahead of an Ashes series, Hussain was wary of observing 23-year old player’s progress against a “moving Dukes ball” during the home summer and refrained from putting him on a pedestal right away.
Nasser Hussain draws parallels between starts of Harry Brook and Kevin Pietersen’s international careers
Hussain, however, did draw parallels between the start of Brook and former England batter Kevin Pietersen’s international careers. Apart from the free-flowing batting skills of both the right-handed batters, Hussain detected how Brook has shown early signs of converting from a white-ball specialist to an all-format batter (something which Pietersen did exceedingly well back in the day).
“Someone turned to me earlier and said ‘Is he as good as [Kevin] Pietersen?’ If he [Harry Brook] does well in England, I think we can start making that sort of comparisons because he has burst on the scene a little bit like KP. KP did it in that white-ball series in South Africa. Brook did it here [Pakistan] in the T20Is. Now he’s done it in the Test matches,” Hussain said on Sky Sports during the lunch break on Day 3.
After scoring a maiden ODI half-century during his debut series for England in Zimbabwe, Pietersen emerged as the highest run-scorer in a seven-match ODI series in South Africa on the back of amassing 454 runs in six innings at a strike rate of 105.58 including three centuries and a half-century.
Brook, meanwhile, scored 238 runs in six innings at a strike rate of 163.01 in a seven-match T20I series in Pakistan played before the World Cup.
