As Harry Brook dragged himself from the field for the final time in the 2025 Champions Trophy his expression was a cross between bemusement and attempting to hold back tears.
Having put on the beginnings of what could have been an innings-salvaging partnership with Joe Root, he had fallen looking to whack Keshav Maharaj over midwicket. It was a good catch that sent him back, but the execution of the shot, and its timing, were his downfall.
In each of his last three innings, Brook has been dismissed by a spinner. He skewed a thick outside edge off Adam Zampa against Australia, and gave a soft caught and bowled to Mohammad Nabi against Afghanistan. It’s been a feature of Brook’s white-ball winter that he’s struggled to rotate the strike against slow bowlers and been out looking to break the shackles. While this is the first stumbling block of a career that’s already reached remarkable heights, there’s more at stake now than just a young player navigating the early stages of what could be one of the great modern futures.
When Brook took charge of the ODI side over the summer, Jos Buttler sidelined through injury, he was under early pressure. His knack for generating rage-worthy headlines in press conferences was revealed when he said in a post-match interview after England’s second collapse in a row: “We are out here to score runs. If you get caught on the boundary or in the field then who cares?”
Stand-in captain Harry Brook downplays concerns over England's dismissals after their loss to Australia in the first ODI.
— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) September 20, 2024
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While the scale of criticism those comments brought was overblown, it’s the type of rhetoric England fans have grown tired of hearing alongside watching their side lose. As it was, on that occasion, Brook silenced everything in the next match at Durham, scoring a scintillating 110* chasing the rain that eventually shortened the game. The next match at Lord’s was even better, from an England and Brook perspective, smashing a 58-ball 87 in a thumping 186-run victory.
In the wake of that series, despite losing it 3-2, there were calls for Brook to take over from Buttler permanently. With the Champions Trophy so close and Buttler having survived the cull that did for Matthew Mott, he stayed on. In hindsight, perhaps it was a mistake, clearing out the cupboard may not have stopped the end result of the Champions Trophy, but it might have been less painful. However, now, with Buttler having officially stepped down, and Brook surely about to be offered the full-time position, those shouts to give the armband to him aren’t as loud.
Maybe it was the smog comment, part of a number of quotes which have again drawn ire rightly or wrongly, as the performances on the pitch worsened. More likely it’s watching the flaws in Brook’s genius be drawn out over the last month. Now, he’ll go to the IPL, where he has a checkered history of success and failure, but will face similar challenges to the ones he has in his last two international series.
It seems inevitable that the next time Brook walks onto the field as an ODI player he will do so as captain. There’s really no other choice, and giving it to Root on an interim basis feels like a step backwards rather than forwards. That Brook and Root bat together so often is jarring in ODI cricket – watching the most complete of England’s players, opposite one navigating his way in the format and the environment in a race against time, is almost too theatrical. Harking back to Root’s own days as captain that weighed so heavily on him, watching on as Brook walked off the pitch in Karachi, his next innings likely to be as captain, is brutal symbolism.
But it doesn’t have to be foreshadowing. The cards England have been dealt both in terms of players available to them and captaincy options aren’t going to change. Making the best of them is how they must move forward. Brook’s talent hasn’t changed, nor has that he played those innings over the summer. The key factor that England were able to hold their own in that series against Australia was Brook’s contribution. Perhaps that’s why the scale of the disaster in the Champions Trophy wasn’t predicted with as certainty at that point as it was in India.
Read more: Player ratings for England after their Champions Trophy group stage exit
It’s rare players come along that hold their sides' fortunes so individually. It’s a story wrapped up in Root’s own career, as well Ben Stokes’ and the other players who have defined generations. Brook is also that player, and his success in what comes next in England’s ODI rebuild will be crucial to its outcome.
Whether Brook is a natural captain is unpredictable, another punt taken on a player sure to still be in England’s set-up years from now. But captain or not, re-finding that Brook who belted Australia all over the park in the summer is far more important to England in the long run, the captaincy is just a sideshow.
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