Harry Brook

Calmly destructive, Brook can easily characterise whatever definition of Bazball is in vogue at that moment. Take his triple-hundred, for example - the first by an Englishman since Graham Gooch's epic in 1990, it came off 310 balls, the second-fastest in Test cricket, behind Virender Sehwag's effort against South Africa in 2008.

That 317 came in Multan in 2024 on Brook's second series in Pakistan after he made headlines during his first tour to the country, in the winter of 2022-23, announcing himself as one of the world's most exciting young players with a staggering run of form across formats.

Having scored nearly 1000 first-class runs at a stunning average of 107.44 in the 2022 County Championship, Brook made his Test debut against South Africa in September and then travelled to Pakistan and New Zealand, where he peeled off consecutive scores of 153, 87, 9, 108, 111, 89, 54, and 186 to take his overall tally to 809 runs in nine innings, at an extraordinary strike rate of 98.77. No player in Test history had started with a bigger bang - Vinod Kambli had 798 runs after his own ninth innings.

By then, Brook was also a T20 World Cup winner, having featured in England's triumph in Australia earlier in the winter, and at the 2023 IPL auction, he was snapped up by Sunrisers Hyderabad for Rs 13.25 crore ($1.6 million).

He is particularly strong against seamers, hitting down the ground, or over midwicket and the covers, and has become innovative too, reverse-lapping and scooping in the death overs.

Compared to his sparkling beginning in Test cricket, the 2023 Ashes was relatively quiet for Brook, with four half-centuries in a tally of 363 in five Tests. He missed the tour of India at the start of 2024 to be with his dying grandmother and spent the time away from the game training hard and trying to get leaner. His improved fitness was evident in his innings in Multan, where he added 454 runs with Joe Root - the highest partnership for the fourth wicket or lower. He finished the year with two hundreds and a half-century in a series in New Zealand, the knocks taking him to No. 1 in the Test rankings. "Brooky can whack you over your head for six, he can scoop you over his head for six, he can smack spin, he can smack seam," said Root, the man Brook replaced at the top of rankings table.

After England's early exit from the 2025 Champions Trophy, Brook replaced Jos Buttler as the team's white-ball captain. Despite mixed results, he impressed with his authority in the role, and was officially designated as Ben Stokes' Test deputy ahead of that winter's Ashes.

He had previously led England Under-19 at home against India in 2017 and captained them at the 2018 U-19 World Cup, top-scoring for the team but getting dropped for their final game for disciplinary reasons.

A product of the Burley-in-Wharfedale club, and Sedburgh School, Brook had flickered in Yorkshire colours over the first couple of years of his professional career, most notably when scoring a maiden first-class hundred in Chelmsford in 2018. He recorded a List A hundred at the start of Yorkshire's 2019 Royal London Cup campaign and showed signs of greater consistency the following summer when he averaged 43 in the Bob Willis Trophy.