England’s swaggering 323-run victory over New Zealand in Wellington, which came inside three days and decided the Test series in their favour, was built upon two incredible and rare feats – Harry Brook’s better than a run-a-ball 123 and a Gus Atkinson hat-trick.
Like a vintage Mike Tyson one-two, they stunned a New Zealand side buoyed by recent victory in India. Hat-tricks are rare beasts (this was only the 15th recorded by an England bowler in 150 years of Test cricket) but it was Brook’s innings on a highly bowler-friendly pitch (Ollie Pope made a fine 66 but the next highest score for England in their first innings was 18) that panicked the hosts most and set the hounds of doubt running among them.
Much has been made of the differential between Brook’s Test batting average at home (38.05) and his one away (89.35), a staggering 51.3 runs. But this innings, although 11,500 miles from Yorkshire, was made on a pitch every bit as sporty as a Headingley green-top and was a masterclass of bending bowlers to your will by putting bat to ball but with the risk so finely calculated that it appears alchemic.
Every now and then someone plays an innings that takes the breath away, not necessarily due to the shot-making on show (though that can often be spectacular) but because it is against the laws of nature at least when applied to cricket.
When the famous umpire, Dickie Bird, retired I asked him what was the greatest innings he’d seen while standing in a Test. ‘Easy lad,’ he replied, ‘the 34 John Edrich made during the 1975 Ashes series against Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson on a sticky dog at Edgbaston.’ It was before helmets and covered pitches, so there was much bravery alongside the skill.
Brook’s team-mate Pope played a humdinger of an innings in India last winter when he made 196 on a raging turner in Hyderabad. Pope enjoyed some luck but every risk he took, and there were plenty, paid off. I wrote at the time that the stars were unlikely to be so aligned in his favour again and that it would be his greatest-ever innings.
Brook’s talent is so exceptional that the knock in Wellington is unlikely to be his pinnacle, though he did acknowledge it to be his best to date.
His offering reminded me of the unbeaten 189 Vivian Richards made against England at Old Trafford in 1984, albeit in a one-day match. I played in the game and West Indies were 102 for seven when Richards decided to take control eventually making 272 for nine.
Although the pitch was good we felt the match situation, the scoreboard pressure, would overwhelm even as great a player as him. I reckon New Zealand’s bowlers felt the same the other day. With the ball zipping about unpredictably off the seam they believed it wouldn’t be long before they found the edge of Brook’s bat or caused a miscue.
Our plan to Richards, on a proper-sized ground, was to bounce him out, the immortal words of Ian Botham being: ‘He can’t keep on hitting them for four or six.’ Well, he did. Richards thwarted our plans by racking up boundaries, something Brook did every bit as brutally in Wellington.
On a pitch where lavish seam movement demanded a full length and tight-off-stump line, Brook forced experienced bowlers, who should have known better, to bowl short at him. He did this mainly by showing them the stumps and then hitting the ball to the cover boundary, though not exclusively. Either way, nerveless chutzpah and an incredible eye were required.
Once New Zealand’s bowlers had been wrenched away from their narrow focus they’d lost the mind battle, the 280 total they conceded at least 100 runs above par (essentially Brook’s amazing knock).
The brevity of England’s innings (it lasted just 54.4 overs) meant there was still juice in the surface when they came to bowl, something Atkinson and Brydon Carse exploited with four wickets apiece. Atkinson’s hat-trick, after the first victim Nathan Smith had played on a ball he tried to leave, involved the classic mind-game fast bowlers have with the tail: will or won’t it be a bouncer?
The first to Matt Henry was; a nasty throat ball which he fended to gully who took the catch. The second, the hat-trick ball, wasn’t, being full and straight though Tim Southee had convinced himself, judging from his lack of foot movement, that he would be smelling leather. Instead, he was plumb lbw.
Brook’s muscular improv and Atkinson’s smash and grab set the platform for others later in the match, namely Jacob Bethell and Ben Duckett, to ram home England’s advantage with the bat before the bowlers once more shared the spoils.
Bethell, who made 96, is yet another young player (he is 21) picked to play for England before enough meaningful data (such as he has yet to score a first-class hundred) has been gathered to give its approval.
But if the selectors must take credit for recognising the kind of talent that will thrive in Tests, the youth element chimes well with the contention of the great Ian Chappell that ‘Ashes tours of Australia are no place for old men’. To win that one in a year’s time really would be validation for Bazball and its recent youth policy.
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