England were 39 for 3, Starc had 3 for 10, and the WACA crowd were already rehearsing the first-day victory songs. Then Harry Brook turned up, eyed the second ball he faced and, in the most matter-of-fact way, skipped down the pitch and laced it through extra cover for three. Any question about how the Yorkshire batter might tackle his maiden Test in Australia disappeared right there.
Brook’s 52 from 61 balls was not pretty in the classical sense, but it was the top score on a relentlessly lively opening day that closed with England 198 all out and Australia 61 for 2 in reply. Only two other batters reached 30 and no-one else hung around as long. He charged Australian bowlers eight times in the space of a touch over an hour and a half, reversing the mood in the ground each time his bat met leather.
He arrived amid chaos – Starc’s left-arm thunderbolts ripping out three of the top four and the WACA hum crackling – yet he looked as if he had been waiting for exactly this sort of scrap. Wiser heads might have blocked, fiddled, or simply survived. Brook did the opposite, taking the theory that a good plan executed now beats the perfect plan later.
England’s tactics under Ben Stokes have rarely veered into passive territory, but even in this side Brook feels like a one-off. A Test strike-rate nudging 88 alongside an average just under 60 puts him in territory no England batter has sustained. With that comes the noise – every harum-scarum dismissal is replayed in slow-mo comment-thread fury – yet he seems content to wear the flak.
Take the final over before lunch. Conventional wisdom for 150 years says “get through to the interval”. Brook twice stepped away, twice took on Starc, once along the carpet for four, once clipped off the hip for a single that left him on 36 at the break. Not reckless, just committed.
The pattern continued immediately after the restart. Scott Boland beat him first ball; next delivery Brook shimmied again and lifted him over wide mid-off for the day’s sole six. Steven Smith moved a man to long-off, and Brook simply started punching straight to the rope instead, taking the shorter side boundaries in the ‘V’ rather than gambling square. Smart, calculated aggression.
Australia, a little surprised, did not go to the short ball quickly enough – a point they will surely revisit now. In the end Brendan Doggett found the response, angling in a bouncer that Brook tried to avoid but gloved through to Alex Carey. Out for 52, and England’s innings soon followed him back to the pavilion.
“He obviously played that counterattacking role, and whether he tries to premeditate certain shots and walks at bowlers, or just tries to clear that infield and take the game on, we’ve seen it happen before – and not just against us,” Starc said afterwards. “You may see some different fields as the series progresses… We might tinker with [our plans] as the series goes on.”
Starc finished with 4 for 35, Doggett picked up 3 for 49, and Boland’s accuracy chipped in with two neat lower-order scalps. For England, only Zak Crawley (34) and Jonny Bairstow (31) provided notable backing. Crawley’s judgement outside off stump was good until a loose drive off Doggett; Bairstow looked threatening before limping down the track at Lyon and offering a simple stumping chance.
Once England were bowled out, Chris Woakes and Gus Atkinson found bounce and movement of their own. Woakes squared up Usman Khawaja in his second over, and Atkinson nicked off Marnus Labuschagne just before the close to leave Australia 61 for 2, still 137 behind. Smith, unbeaten on 22, already looks key.
It is too soon to call momentum, but Brook’s tempo prevented England falling into a first-day hole that would have been tough to climb out of in Perth. His approach is unlikely to change; the bigger question is how Australia now alter theirs. A couple more short balls, deeper square men, the odd bluff bouncer – we will find out soon enough.
The Ashes tend to swing on small shifts rather than grand statements, yet Brook’s 52 felt like something in between: not a headline-grabbing hundred, but enough to drag the narrative England’s way for an evening at least. The sold-out crowd will be back tomorrow, waiting to see whether Starc’s promised “different fields” come to pass – and whether England’s newest middle-order maverick has another answer ready.
