By Simon Wilkes
England head coach Brendon McCullum hailed Harry Brook’s “calmness” as captain after the young Yorkshire star steered his team to a 3-0 T20I series win over the West Indies.
England went into the third and final match at the Utilita Bowl in Southampton 2-0 up and amassed a huge 248 for three in their 20 overs, which proved too much for the visitors.
Highest home total in T20Is
Opening pair Ben Duckett (84 off 46 balls) and Jamie Smith (60 off 26) set the tone with a brutal stand that was broken with 120 on the board.
Then former captain Jos Buttler hit 22 off 10 balls before Brook (35 off 22) and Jacob Bethell (36 off 16) steered England to their highest total posted at home in a T20I.
With the ball in hand, Brook’s hosts reduced the tourists to 70 for four, with Rovman Powell (79no off 45 balls) and Windies skipper Shai Hope (45 off 27) providing the only real resistance as they closed on 211 for eight, giving England a 37-run victory.
Adil Rashid (2-30), Luke Wood (3-31), Liam Dawson (1-34), and Jacob Bethell (1-32) performed well in another excellent all-round performance from Brook’s charges with bat and ball.
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A good fortnight
McCullum, who will now turn his attention to the upcoming Test series with India, discussed Brook’s impact on the white-ball team since replacing Buttler as captain.
The New Zealander told Sky Sports: “It has been a really good two weeks.
“Any time you go through a period of transition and change, you have aspirations and hopes on what you can achieve.
“Sometimes, they happen quick and sometimes they take a long time to embed.”
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Clear blueprint
“But in the last couple of weeks, we have seen a clear blueprint of how Harry Brook wants this cricket team to run and his style of captaincy. That’s a real positive,” McCullum continued.
“I have let him [Brook] find his way. He doesn’t like to make things complicated; he likes to keep it simple. That’s a compliment, it’s a great skill.
“His calmness, his poise, his ability to keep it simple rubs off on other guys.
“He’s also captained a lot of sides growing up, so he’s got great friendships with guys who understand how he works.”
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Positive signs
“We haven’t conquered the world,” the coach admitted, “but we have made a nice start over the last couple of weeks. It’s good positive signs.”
Brook himself told Sky Sports: “The lads have put a really good shift in. To top off the series like we have is really pleasing.
“I like the depth in the batting; it gives the lads at the top permission to go out there and get us off to a flier like they did.”
Brook’s West Indies counterpart Hope said: “We haven’t really put a complete game together in this series. We just need to find ways to do it. We need to keep chipping away and try to get as good as we can.
“As a West Indies batting group, we need to find ways to score more consistently moving forward.”
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Geoffrey H. Latayan