Bold Brook finally delivers on hefty price tag with ton

England’s Harry Brook rebounded from three failures with the bat in resounding fashion with the first century of the Indian Premier League (IPL) season as he guided the Sunrisers Hyderabad to a 23-run victory over the Kolkata Knight Riders yesterday.
Brook, 24, is one of England’s most exciting talents and an all-format player who came with a whopping $1.62mnprice tag in the player auction.
But he had scored just 29 runs in three IPL innings prior to yesterday’s game against Kolkata where he finally found his groove and cut loose at the Eden Gardens, reaching an unbeaten 100 in just 55 balls.
The opening batter targeted the fast bowlers and he smashed three sixes and 12 boundaries en route to his century, switching roles from attacking in the powerplay to anchoring the innings when skipper Aiden Markram came in and smashed 50 off 26 balls.
Such was Brook’s contribution that even the home crowd of around 60,000 were on their feet to give him a standing ovation when he got to his hundred with a single in the final over as he helped his team to a season-high total of 228-4.
“I’ve had a bit of trouble with spin, but I wanted to use the powerplay to my advantage. So (in the) middle overs I wanted to rotate strike and let the other boys do the hitting. It is a belter of a pitch,” Brook said.
“I think I was putting pressure on myself after the first few games (because of the price tag). People on social media start to call you ‘rubbish’,” he added after he was named Man of the Match. “They were slagging me off a few days ago. Glad I could shut them up, to be honest.”
In response, Kolkata were restricted to 205-7 despite captain Nitish Rana’s knock of 75 while Rinku Singh was unbeaten on 58 off 31. Rinku recorded his maiden IPL fifty but could not repeat his heroics when he smashed five consecutive sixes in the final over to lead Kolkata to victory over the Gujarat Titans earlier this week.
KKR captain Rana said: “I feel that the way we bowled wasn’t in line with the plan. However the wicket may be, a score of close to 230 is too high. We could have planned and bowled better. We know that what Rinku did the other day won’t happen everyday; but the way he batted and I batted made me happy overall. He added: “The plan that I communicated with Rinku and Dre Russ was to take it as deep as possible; I thought anything can happen then. I tried to hold one end and went about hitting.
“We know that the wicket at Eden Gardens has always played like this and will continue to do so.
“Even we were expecting 200 but we could have bowled better.
“On a given day, I can’t do much if the main bowler goes for runs because the same bowlers win the most games. It was a bad day and that’s okay. Happy with our fight, would’ve been happier had we gotten two points.”

BRIEF SCORES
Sunrisers Hyderabad 228 for 4 (Brook 100*, Markram 50, Abhishek 32, Russell 3-22) beat Kolkata Knight Riders 205 for 7 (Rana 75, Rinku 58*, Jagadeesan 36, Markande 2-27, Jansen 2-37) by 23 runs