Did you see… Harry Brook’s first ball in Melbourne? Unquestionably the 2025/26 Ashes’ finest moment

5 minute read

Harry Brook walked out at 8-3 in England’s first innings in Melbourne. Mitchell Starc ran in and bowled at 145.1km/h. Brook ran at it, swung with all his might… and completely missed it. It was one of the most glorious arrivals we can ever remember seeing.

This was, let’s be clear, a breath-takingly awful shot, but therein lies its magnificence. Because how can you not admire a man who must surely know what people are already saying about him and what they will go on to say, who digests all that, processes it, and then decides on this as a course of action?

“Disgrace! Send him home!”

At times it’s hard to tell whether the BBC’s cricket coverage sets, captures or reflects the wider mood of English cricket. Perhaps it’s all three.

“Oh dear me,” said Jonathan Agnew on commentary. “Has nothing that’s been said these last few weeks – nothing – gone in at all? I’m sorry. This is the vice captain.”

This was the backdrop to Brook’s shot. England had lost the Ashes. They hadn’t batted well. They’d gone to Noosa and some of them had drunk beer.

Brook, for some reason, was a bit of a lightning rod for all of this.

We’d later learn that Brook had been lamped by a Kiwi bouncer the night before captaining England to a defeat on the previous tour. This casts his broader decision-making in a rather different light, but not all his on-field decisions are bad ones – even the ones that most definitely are when viewed in isolation.

A certain sort of England fan believes there is one specific, correct way to bat in Test cricket and anything that falls outside of that must by definition reduce a player’s effectiveness. Brook has the highest Test average of any England batter this century and he has achieved that with almost complete disregard for preservation of his wicket.

He has not achieved this despite that approach. He has achieved it because of it. If his method is imperfect in places, there are more pluses than minuses. Some cannot see what he has gained (and what we have gained) from playing this way. They for some reason take his achievements as proof he would obviously be better still if only he were to approach Test match batting in an entirely different way.

Witless?

After the Adelaide Test – the match before this innings – The Telegraph ran an article headlined “Harry Brook’s witless self-destruction sums him and England up.”

Just to hammer the point home, the standfirst began, “Batsman’s addiction to circus flourishes undermine [sic] his immense talent.”

The carefree approach has unquestionably worked for Brook, but jeez, how do you maintain that when you’re being endlessly pressured by this crap? More than ever right now, we worry how it’ll erode him. To come out and play not merely a daft shot, but a shot almost wilfully antagonistic in its daftness in Melbourne was therefore positively heroic in our eyes.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: the thing about performing mad, unlikely, incredible feats is that you first have to attempt them.

Just over a year ago, Brook responded to his team being 26-3 and soon after 43-4 by hitting 123 off 115 balls against New Zealand. We felt that this was Peak Harry Brook and we were already afraid for him, wondering what psychological chicanery he must indulge in to keep those troublesome cares away.

It’s vital that he does. If this one specific shot against Starc was bad, Brook’s overall output has been massively enhanced by the strategy that gave rise to it. And it’s not like he even got out.

Similarly, batting like Joe Root works for Joe Root… usually. But on day one in Melbourne, Root played his first 14 balls very sensibly and was then out for a duck off the 15th.

So it’s not like England threw every last bit of caution to the wind that day. Someone gave a more cautious approach a go, and that someone was Joe Root… and he didn’t score a run.

In contrast, Brook wasn’t deterred by his air swipe. He in fact advanced at quick bowlers five times in his first 15 balls.

The man is not cowed by the scorecard. This is actually a good thing.

We are not here to say that running down the wicket first ball to disturb only some Melbourne air constitutes a great move from anyone. We are saying that, for Brook at least, this kind of mad, brave, bold proactivity drags his finer qualities along in its wake. Why put so much emphasis on just one ball?

Against India, last summer, Brook came out late in the day and largely played for the close against Jasprit Bumrah. It was sensible cricket, but he looked terrible. The one attacking shot he played, he was caught off a no-ball.

The next morning everyone was excited to see the pair resume hostilities. Ollie Pope had just been dismissed for 106 in the previous over; the match was in the balance. Brook ran down the pitch at the finest bowler in the world and hit the most exquisite drive you’ll ever see. He made 99 and lost his wicket playing a jumping hook shot that made a lot of people very angry. England won the match.

The Melbourne shot was Brook at his maddest, bravest and boldest and if all of his greatest innings have been carved out of madness, bravery and boldness, how much do you really want to chip away at those things?

Shortly afterwards, he slapped Starc over extra cover for six, having attempted pretty much exactly the same shot. He wristed another six over long-on when the score was still 39-4.

Twenty wickets fell on day one at Melbourne and no-one else passed 40. Brook was unbeaten in the second innings and the winning runs came off his thigh pad.

The one time he was dismissed, LBW, he was trying to defend. Watching it again, we cannot fathom why he didn’t take the safe option of running down the pitch and carting it over extra cover for six.

He’s the vice captain. Has nothing gone in at all? Brook’s witless addiction to passive defensive strokes undermines his immense talent.

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