Brook channels Headingley disappointment en route to 100 while stating his side are still not out of the contest.
Brook channels Headingley 99 as fuel for his 158 yesterday.
Harry Brook claimed that after his ninth Test century pulled England back into the second Test match against India, the disappointment of his first-ever 99 at Headingley last week left him “hungry” for a century at Edgbaston.
Prior to dragging Prasidh Krishna to deep-backward square-leg in Leeds, Brook had never been dismissed in the nineties in his domestic or international career. He had been relieved on 0 after being caught off a front-foot no-ball by Jasprit Bumrah. In the second innings, he was strangled by the first ball down the leg side, but he bounced back from those setbacks by smashing 158 in Birmingham.
“I was definitely hungry to get a hundred today. I’d never been out in the 90s before,” Brook said. “It was disappointing, but I should have got a pair last week, so I can’t complain too much.”
As India gained a 180-run lead, Brook put up 303 for the sixth wicket with Jamie Smith, whose 184 not out was the greatest score by an England wicketkeeper. However, Smith’s dismissal for 158 caused a collapse of 5 for 20. Brook blamed England’s 151 overs in the field for his cramping in the last few minutes of his batting before he was bowled.
“I was knackered,” he said. “It was my whole right side. I’d never had it before. Even the heat of [the subcontinent]. It was probably the death of me at the end, but yeah, I was knackered. It probably didn’t help that we fielded for two days and then batted for nearly a full day… It wasn’t ideal.”
He praised Smith’s “phenomenal” innings, and said that he had been happy to play an unfamiliar role as second fiddle. “He tried to change the momentum back in our favour and it worked for a long period of time,” Brook said. “It was awesome. It was so good to watch from the other end. I felt like he could hit four or six every ball. I was just trying to get him on strike.”
In the last hour of the day, India increased their lead to 244 runs with nine wickets remaining, as England was costly with the new ball. Brook stated that although England has a “big task” ahead of them as they attempt to take a 2-0 lead in the series, there is no possibility that they will alter their strategy and try to get a draw.
“I think everybody in the world knows that we’re going to try and chase whatever they set us,” he said. “We’ve obviously got a big task at hand tomorrow morning and we’ll try and get a couple of wickets early on and try and put them under pressure.
“Obviously, they are in front at the minute, but if we get a couple of early wickets in the morning… you never know how this game can go. As we’ve seen last week, we got 7 for 30 [41] runs and then 6 for 40 [31] runs at Headingley and then they’ve done the same to us today. Everything happened so quickly and you never know how the game can go.”