“I want to be my own batter. I want to be Harry Brook, not anybody else.”
If such comparisons are a burden, it is one he finds easy to shed. And part of that is down to the fact that the player he is and the player he might become has never seemed closer. On Wednesday, he ascended to No.3 in the ICC Test rankings, fresh from his fifth century in just his 14th match – and first at home. A jewel in England’s Test batting line-up is already sparkling.
And yet, Brook’s strive for individuality has been aided by some sparrow-ing of his favourite players. Including the bloke at the other end in a fourth-wicket stand of 189.
“Nowadays you have to take different parts of other batters and put it into your game,” Brook said. “There’s so many good players out there.
“An example is Rooty [Joe Root] playing the ball so late, or AB de Villiers hitting all around the ground, Kevin Pietersen for his power. So yeah, you do see little bits of other people’s games and try to fit it into yours. I’ve done a little bit of that… but not too much.”
The mention of Pietersen – tee-ed up to Brook but embraced all the same – provides too convenient an avenue not to take. Both love to dominate, feet still, head to the pitch, hands so brutally into the ball it’s as if they’re trying to punch through it and cuff the bowler.
They also – as method rather than fate would have it – do seem to have a shared knack of getting themselves out when their opponents seem incapable of doing so.
Of the disparaging labels put on Pietersen during a hall-of-fame career, the occasional dismissal attributed to alphadom meant “selfish” stuck firmest. The easier you make the batting seem, the bigger the sin it is to waste.
More than a decade on, attitudes have changed, particularly in the England dressing-room. Even during a period of self-imposed refinement, Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum are still encouraging their shotmakers and ceding to their judgement, particularly if they sense an opportunity to shift momentum out in the middle, as Pietersen often did.
Brook’s first two dismissals in the series reflected this. At Lord’s, on 50, he decided to show Alzarri Joseph he would not relent against the short ball by taking it on again, only to cloth a top edge to Joshua Da Silva. It bore some similarities to his dismissal at the ground the year before, though, being an Ashes, that drew much harsher criticism.
On day one at Nottingham, he walked off with a breezy 36, having toed a paddle scoop to short leg off Kevin Sinclair. Two innings played, two good starts burned.
“I identified a gap behind square on the leg side and I wanted to manipulate the field to open other parts of the ground to score,” Brook said of that first Trent Bridge dismissal. “Maybe I didn’t need to play that shot but if I’d nailed it, they might have had to change the field and it would have opened up another gap.”
It’s remarkable clarity from a 25-year-old, though nothing out of the ordinary for such a straight-shooter. That thrill-seeking proactiveness was still evident in his century. Once more, Joseph went after him. Only this time Brook, serene on 46, stepped to the leg side and attempted to carve the quick over cover. He came within a matter of inches of having his stumps rearranged and leaving England in a hole.
Could a more risk-averse Brook be more productive going forward? That does not feel like the right question.
Because, ultimately, that wouldn’t be the Harry Brook we have, or the Harry Brook he wants to be. And while he continues to make strives to better himself, notably with his fitness, fuelled by a desire to turn ones into twos and twos into threes, as well contribute more in the field, the progression of his batting is likely to forever be governed by the lavish brazenness we have already witnessed.
What was particularly instructive was his reaction to being informed his career average of 62.54 is now second only to Sir Don Bradman. How did Brook feel to be within faint sight of not just true greatness, but near-batting perfection?
Well, a little nonplussed.
“That could definitely fluctuate either way,” he remarked, before adding, “Hopefully I can keep if that high. But if not, so be it.”
Vithushan Ehantharajah is an associate editor at ESPNcricinfo