Watch: Harry Brook announced himself on the world stage with his maiden T20 hundred off just 48 balls in the 2022 Pakistan Super League.
Months before he burst into the spotlight with his incredible performances for the England Test team, Brook showed the quality he was capable of for Lahore Qalandars. Up until that point, Brook had been having a modest winter with the bat. He had scored 44 runs in seven BBL innings for Hobart Hurricanes and made ten off 14 balls on his T20I debut against the West Indies. But he hit his groove in Pakistan.
Across his first three innings for the franchise, he scored 104 runs and was dismissed only once. His breakthrough innings, however, came in Lahore Qalandars’ penultimate league stage match against Islamabad United.
Batting first, Qalandars had been reduced to 12-3 with the wicket of Mohammad Hafeez bringing Brook to the crease. After a watchful start, he picked up his first boundary thanks to a misfield on the circle, before he slammed his first six over fine-leg from Mohammad Wasim Jr’s next ball.
Continuing to punish some inconsistent bowling from the Islamabad attack, Brook also hit back-to-back boundaries in the following over. He played two gorgeous drives through the covers off Faheem Ashraf, showcasing the elegance and poise in his technique for which he is now renowned.
He brought up his fifty off 29-balls in the 13th over of the innings, one ball after Fakhar Zaman also brought up his half-century. It was Brook’s first PSL fifty, with the hundred partnership also coming up the following ball. While Fakhar was out at the end of that over, Brook powered on.
He hit three boundaries off Mohammad Wasim Jr’s second over, finishing with a hooked six over fine-leg. His next maximum came off Waqas Maqsood, scythed high back over the bowler’s head and the long-on boundary.
But it was off Maqsood’s following over that Brook capitalised to reach the three-figure milestone. He hit a four off the first ball of the 19th over before crashing another six over long off. On 97 and with one ball remaining in the over, he played a full delivery through the off-side to bring up a superb century. At the time, it was the second-fastest hundred in PSL history and had come off 48 balls. Since then, however, it has been pushed down into third position thanks to Usman Khan’s 36-ball blitz in PSL 8.
Having been 12-3 when Brook came in, Qalandars finished their innings on 197-6 and went on to win the match by 66 runs. They also went on to win that edition of the tournament, beating Multan Sultans by 42 runs in the final. Brook scored a quick-fire 41* off 22 in that match.
The century was the start of an incredible 12 months for Brook. He scored over 1,000 runs across the County Championship and T20 Blast combined by the end of May, before he was called up to the England Test squad. After making his Test debut against South Africa at The Oval, he has gone on to have arguably the greatest-ever start to a Test match career, racing to over 800 runs in ten innings. He has also picked up a T20 World Cup winners medal, an IPL deal worth INR 13.25 Crore (£1.35 million) and made his ODI debut.
