When Harry Brook pulled off his wonder catch in England’s first Test of the summer, Ben Stokes was left open-mouthed in amazement. It’s not the first time England’s new one-day skipper has elicited that kind of response.
“It was October, dark and pouring down with rain – you always stop to see what’s going on and I could see this silhouette running up and down the pitch, stopping for some star jumps, press-ups and then carrying on again,” says Dave Cooper, director of cricket at Burley-in-Wharfedale. “It was a 14-year-old Harry Brook. He had been told he wasn’t fit enough – how many people of that age choose to go out and do something about it, particularly in the Yorkshire winter! It’s what sets him apart.”
Last month Brook returned to the club to formally open the club’s new net facility. “We had to replace them – he had worn the other ones out,” laughs Cooper.
It was more than just a ribbon-cutting exercise, though. Brook’s links to the Airedale & Wharfedale Senior Cricket League side are lengthy and enduring.
“He phoned me up in April and said ‘Coops, I want a net with a bowling machine, could you cut me a strip on the square?’,” says Cooper. “So, at 7.30am on the Saturday morning, we were looking on the Bradford Council website to check out their noise abatement policy to see what time we could have a roller going. Turns out it was 7am, so if anyone had complained we were within the rules!”
The noise surrounding the unassuming Yorkshireman hasn’t shown any sign of quietening since he made his county debut while still at school in June 2016. Now, less than a decade on, the 26-year-old will lead England out for the opening match of their white ball series against West Indies at Edgbaston on Thursday.
Like England’s Test captain, Ben Stokes, Brooks isn’t a man with an enormous amount of captaincy experience. But that’s not to say that this is a man who doesn’t understand the intricacies of leadership and tactics.
“I ran the West Yorkshire team for 13 years and, at various points, Harry was in my squad,” says Cooper. “Did I ever make him captain? No, but that’s not to say that he couldn’t have done a very good job.
“I think his first experience of captaincy was with England under-19s, but Harry is from a cricketing family. His dad [David] was a top player and you’ll have heard that story of when he got that triple hundred for England against Pakistan in Multan, his main aim was to get past 210, which was his dad’s top score in a league match for Burnley in 2001. At one stage, Harry wasn’t even the highest run scorer in his own family!
“If you go into the clubhouse, where there are now two of his England shirts in glass cases, you’ll also see the captains board and there’s Tony Brook, his grandad, who was captain in the Seventies and then his uncle, Richard, who was captain for 13 years on the trot, and his other uncle, Nick, who was captain of the club for two or three years as well.
“You can imagine the conversations around the tea table. I remember Tony being very vociferous in his criticism of England’s captaincy, spitting feathers over a lack of a short leg or a bowling change. Harry would have been sat on the sofa as a kid listening to this. You pick things like that up, absorbing information and seeing the game at a higher level because of his family’s links with the sport.”
Few could have imagined that young Harry would one day land one of English cricket’s most prestigious jobs. Although Martin Speight, head of cricket at Sedbergh School during Brook’s time there on a scholarship, did have an inkling that here was a teenager with a special talent.
“He came to us at the age of 14 and you could see that he had something,” says Speight. “I said to our head of hockey, Mark Shopland, that Harry was going to the top. So, he put £100 on him playing for England at odds of 100-1. I wish I had too.”
While Speight honed the finer points of his batting technique, the teenage Brook spent hours working on his fitness. During his time there he took part in the fabled Wilson Run, a 10-mile killer across the fells of Cumbria.
“He had broken his hand on an England under-19 tour of India but he still insisted on doing it,” says Speight. “I think he ended up completing it in something like one hour 40 minutes, which trust me is a brilliant effort.”
The irony of Brook’s time at the school was that after a series of near-misses in national finals with him in the side, Sedbergh eventually won it in 2018. Brook was absent.
“He was playing for Yorkshire,” laughs Speight.
This white ball series against the West Indies will be Brook’s first challenge on the road to the 2027 World Cup. After putting in the hard yards in the rain and wind of a Yorkshire village, England will hope his brand of captaincy will be a breath of fresh air.
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