Ninety-Nine at Home
NEWS / Ninety-Nine at Home
Headingley, 22 June 2025, first Test against India. Harry Brook was 99. Home crowd. First Test hundred at this ground, one shot away. Prasidh Krishna banged it in. Brook hooked. Shardul Thakur was at long leg. ESPNcricinfo called it a periscope pull. Thakur did not have to dive.
He had never been dismissed in the nineties. Not in Tests. Not in any professional innings. Cricinfo’s count: 322 innings. The first time the number stuck on 99 was in front of the Western Terrace. He does not really celebrate centuries. He still threw his head back. Headingley clapped him off anyway.
The innings had already used up its luck. Saturday night, on nought, he spooned Bumrah to midwicket. No-ball. Sunday: dropped on 46, Pant off Jadeja. Dropped on 80, Jaiswal at gully. He charged Bumrah through extra cover. He reverse-scooped Jadeja. He launched Siraj into the Football Stand. 99 off 112, eleven fours, two sixes. England 465. India 471. Six runs in it.
Harry Brook’s 99 against India at Headingley, June 2025. If the player does not load, open it on YouTube.
In the second innings he lasted one ball. Caught down the leg side off Thakur, the man who had taken the 99. 99 and 0 in the same Test. Only four men had done that before him. He is No. 1 in the Test batting list now. The list does not have a column for the one he left on the board at home.