Harry Brook, the Yorkshire batter whose Test career began faster than almost anyone's
Only Sunil Gavaskar and Don Bradman scored more runs than Harry Brook in their first six Tests. The Yorkshireman piled up 809 in his first nine innings, beating a record Vinod Kambli had held, and he reached 800 after facing just 803 balls, a rate closer to one-day cricket than Tests.
Brook was born in Keighley on 22 February 1999 and grew up in Burley in Wharfedale, in a family steeped in club cricket. After Ilkley Grammar School he moved at 14 to Sedbergh, a Cumbrian boarding school, where coach Martin Speight, a former professional, shaped his game. Still a schoolboy, he played his first first-class match for Yorkshire against Pakistan A at Headingley on 26 June 2016.
He captained England at the 2018 Under-19 World Cup, where an unbeaten 102 against Bangladesh made him only the second England captain after Alastair Cook to hit a hundred in that event, and he finished as the side's top scorer with 239 runs. Franchise cricket followed. Batting for Lahore Qalandars at 12 for 3, he made 102 not out off 49 balls, the youngest centurion in Pakistan Super League history. Sunrisers Hyderabad paid ₹13.25 crore for him in December 2022, and his IPL hundred against Kolkata in April 2023 made him the first player to score centuries in both leagues.
Test debut came on 8 September 2022 against South Africa. At Rawalpindi that winter he made 153 and 87, and at the Basin Reserve in February 2023 he struck 186 from 174 balls while he and Joe Root added 302 after England had slumped to 21 for 3. During the 2023 Ashes he became the fastest batter, by balls faced, to 1,000 Test runs.
Opening England's 2024 tour of Pakistan, he hit 317, matching Chris Gayle's score and ending a 34-year wait for an English Test triple hundred. His stand of 454 with Root set an England record and a new Test high for the fourth wicket. He topped the ICC Test batting rankings that December, and on 7 April 2025 was appointed England's white-ball captain, opening with 3–0 series sweeps of West Indies.
Source: Harry Brook
