<\/p>\n
Y<\/span>ou have to hand it to Bazball. Even when seemingly killed off, and the England team it left behind is thousands of miles away, preparing for a series against Pakistan, it has still managed to muscle its way into the fallout from Bangladesh\u2019s seismic victory over Australia<\/a> in Darwin. Talk about main character energy.<\/p>\n By definition, that nine-wicket victory for Bangladesh<\/a> was no fluke. Najmul Hossain Shanto\u2019s men didn\u2019t jag a tight one but rather dominated their hosts over four days. And in doing so, they also managed to unite Ashes rivals by demonstrating what a golden opportunity England blew against Australia\u2019s greybeards last winter.<\/p>\n To say as much back then was to risk being called as deluded as the team itself; to be an enabler of the hubris that underpinned England\u2019s gung-ho approach. Stuart Broad, for example, was widely lampooned for saying that Australia, though an excellent side, were ageing and as vulnerable as they had been for a long time.<\/p>\n But plenty of Australian voices are now making the same point, either directly or by implication. A common refrain has been that, had England batted \u201csensibly\u201d \u2013 ie with the same gimlet-eyed application of Bangladesh in a match-defining 400-plus total amassed over 138 overs \u2013 that sorry 4-1 defeat<\/a> could have been very different.<\/p>\n While England\u2019s bowling has been forgotten here \u2013 Bangladesh opted against feeding Travis Head\u2019s cut shot like it was a goose being fattened for foie gras \u2013 thoughts certainly do go back to the defining collapses in Perth and Brisbane, when a string of batters hardwired to attack ignored the risk that seemed so obvious.<\/p>\n Among them was Harry Brook, whose most recent act in the whites of England was to go down swinging against New Zealand<\/a> and trigger another wave of chuntering about there being more brains in a pork pie. Brook was following team orders but all people saw was 21 off nine balls and yet another example of Harry-kiri.<\/p>\n In a parallel universe Brook is about to captain England\u2019s Test team for the first time at his home ground of Headingley this week. Instead, England have turned back to Joe Root as the successor to Ben Stokes, with Rob Key saying the vacancy had come \u201ctoo soon\u201d for Brook and hinting that greater maturity was needed.<\/p>\n Perhaps it was too great an ask for Brook to lead across all three formats, or too messy to hive off the T20 captaincy to another player under split coaches. Of course the unsaid bit here is that nightclub incident<\/a> in Wellington last November \u2013 the spark for the chain reaction that ultimately created the\u00a0vacancy.<\/p>\n Although beyond learning that knocking back hazy pale ales the night before captaining in a one-day international is probably a bad idea, how much does Brook actually need to change his approach?<\/p>\n Clearly driving on the up in unfamiliar Perth was not smart from Brook, likewise trying to larrup Mitchell Starc under lights in his first pink-ball Test. Overall his Ashes was disappointing and a year has passed since his last Test century \u2013 a period in which wicketkeepers Alex Carey and Tom Blundell standing up to the quicks has caused him issues.<\/p>\n But as much as the removal of Brendon McCullum<\/a> as England\u2019s Test head coach after the 2-1 defeat by New Zealand signals a desire for the pendulum to swing back a touch overall, Brook feels the very least of their problems right now. The fact is, for all that his dismissals can be triggering in the moment, Brook has already put up the kind of numbers that mark him out as a truly remarkable talent. After 38 Tests he averages 53, has scored 10 centuries (including a triple in Multan<\/a>), and he sits second in the Test batting rankings behind Head.<\/p>\n