Sitting in the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s Mumbai headquarters, adjacent to the Wankhede Stadium, three days before the start of England’s World Cup campaign, Harry Brook was asked about captaining a T20 side in its latest, even-more-wild-scoring iteration, against opponents looking to flay sixes with ungodly regularity. “Yeah, you’ve got to stay with a cool head as much as you possibly can,” he said. “You’ve just got to try to be as calm as possible.”
In England’s last World Cup fixture at the Wankhede, in 2023’s 50-over tournament, calm and cool heads were exactly what they were missing. After mystifyingly electing to field against South Africa on a searing hot afternoon, they effectively melted; Heinrich Klaasen scored a century, England chased 400 and were rolled out for 170. It is a grisly memory mercifully borne by only a few members of the current squad, which includes just three survivors of that side (Brooks, Ben Stokes and Adil Rashid).
