da blaze casino： Harry Brook insists England aren’t out of the game despite collapses topping and tailing their innings at Edgbaston
da gbg bet： ESPNcricinfo staff04-Jul-20250:59
Brook: Was definitely hungry to get a hundred today
Harry Brook said the disappointment of his first-ever 99 at Headingley last week made him “hungry” for a century at Edgbaston, after his ninth Test hundred dragged England back into the second Test against India.Brook had never previously been dismissed in the 90s in either his domestic or international career before pulling Prasidh Krishna to deep-backward square-leg in Leeds, having been reprieved on 0 when he was caught off a front-foot no-ball from Jasprit Bumrah. He was then strangled first ball down the leg side in the second innings, but responded to those disappointments by cracking 158 in Birmingham.”I was definitely hungry to get a hundred today. I’d never been out in the 90s before,” Brook said. “It was disappointing, but I should have got a pair last week, so I can’t complain too much.”Related
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Brook put on 303 for the sixth wicket with Jamie Smith, whose 184 not out was the highest score by an England wicketkeeper, but his dismissal for 158 sparked a collapse of 5 for 20 as India took a 180-run lead. Brook suffered with cramps in the final stages of his innings before he was bowled, and blamed England’s 151 overs in the field.”I was knackered,” he said. “It was my whole right side. I’d never had it before. Even the heat of [the subcontinent]. It was probably the death of me at the end, but yeah, I was knackered. It probably didn’t help that we fielded for two days and then batted for nearly a full day… It wasn’t ideal.”He praised Smith’s “phenomenal” innings, and said that he had been happy to play an unfamiliar role as second fiddle. “He tried to change the momentum back in our favour and it worked for a long period of time,” Brook said. “It was awesome. It was so good to watch from the other end. I felt like he could hit four or six every ball. I was just trying to get him on strike.”Harry Brook brought up his ninth Test century•Getty Images
England were expensive with the new ball in the final hour of the day, as India stretched their lead to 244 runs with nine wickets in hand. Brook said that England have a “big task” ahead of them as they bid to take a 2-0 lead in the series, but said that there was no chance they would change their philosophy and look to secure a draw.”I think everybody in the world knows that we’re going to try and chase whatever they set us,” he said. “We’ve obviously got a big task at hand tomorrow morning and we’ll try and get a couple of wickets early on and try and put them under pressure.”Obviously, they are in front at the minute, but if we get a couple of early wickets in the morning… you never know how this game can go. As we’ve seen last week, we got 7 for 30 [41] runs and then 6 for 40 [31] runs at Headingley and then they’ve done the same to us today. Everything happened so quickly and you never know how the game can go.”
