Brook frustrated at his side’s lack of adapting to ODI format after England’s latest series loss to New Zealand.
Brook lost for answers as NZ hand England another ODI ‘hammering’.
Harry Brook, the white-ball captain, acknowledged that his team had been “hammered” by New Zealand, but he was unable to provide an explanation for England’s difficulties in the format.
After England lost the second of his short captaincy reign and their sixth ODI series in seven, Brook was unable to conceal his disappointment for the first time during his time as captain.
In response to a query about whether the outcome in Hamilton was the first occasion he had been angry with his team, Brook’s unhappiness was evident despite all the rhetoric of wanting to entertain.
“It’s disappointing, isn’t it,” Brook said. “You go round every single player there and you think, ‘bloody hell, there aren’t many teams that they don’t get into in the world’. It’s disappointing we haven’t performed as well as we could. It happens. They’ve played well and sometimes you’ve got to hold your hand up and say they’ve been the better team.”
Three days after falling to 234 all out at Mount Maunganui—a score rescued by Brook’s own outstanding 135—England was bowled out for 175 in the second ODI.
For an England team that has been bowled out in seven of their eight away ODIs this year, this is a worrying pattern. They haven’t reached 250 in any innings in 2025 where Joe Root hasn’t scored a half-century, according to an astounding statistic that was brought up on the Wisden Cricket Weekly podcast. Additionally, their dedication to “going hard” is demonstrated by the fact that they have either failed to bat their overs or made 350 when batting first this year.
“It’s not too dissimilar to the way we play Test cricket, really,” Brook said of the difficulties of switching formats. “We play aggressively in Test cricket and it’s not too far off. Obviously we haven’t played much one-day cricket in the last however many years. I can’t quite put my finger on why we haven’t batted well enough. It’s just one of those things. You come to play the second-best team in the world on their own patch and they’ve hammered us.”