Pakistan fans were not shy in voicing their disapproval at getting to see so little of their No5 with bat in hand in Karachi on Sunday.
Asif Ali was afforded just three balls at the end of the home innings in the fourth T20, putting two of them into the stand to help Pakistan to what still looked a significantly sub-par total.
Chasing 167, England fans might happily have seen none of theirs. But after three top-order wickets fell inside the first two overs of the reply for only 14 runs, few will have been complaining at the prospect of another dose of Harry Brook.
On Friday evening, Brook had produced a coming-of-age innings in an England shirt, a magical, all-round-the-ground 81* off just 35 deliveries, including eight fours and five sixes, to put England 2-1 up in the series.
In the end, the 23-year-old followed it up with perhaps his least convincing innings on this tour so far. His 34 still joint-top-scored with Liam Dawson, whose own late cameo so nearly salvaged victory for the tourists before Pakistan recovered to level the series with a three-run win in a thrilling finale.
There were still some sensational strokes, most notably a stunning lofted six over extra-cover, but some let-offs, too, a dolly dropped by Shan Masood and some stubborn bails affording the Yorkshireman an extra couple of lives.
Still, after a stellar run in Karachi — 188 runs at 94 and a strike rate of 174 across four knocks — the question, as this seven-game series now heads to Lahore, is whether Brook has already done enough to secure a starting spot at next month’s World Cup in Australia.
With so many of England’s established white-ball stars missing, Brook has taken the kind of chance that his red-ball form was deserving of earlier in the summer but that never quite arrived amid the success of the Bazball revolution.
Brook scored 967 runs at an average of 107.44 in the County Championship but had to wait until Jonny Bairstow’s freak injury and the final Test against South Africa at the Oval (where he batted only once) for a go in the side.
It has been an accepted dressing-room wisdom in so many of sport’s great sides, though, that you ought not — through injury, form or anything else — lose your shirt. Alas, the bloke waiting to pull it on is really, really good.
That is certainly the case with Brook, the caveat being that it is not immediately clear whose shirt he is ready to poach.
Under Jos Buttler and Matthew Mott, England have tended to balance their side with an additional bowler but Brook’s form — as well as the return of Mark Wood to strengthen the attack — may be enough to prompt a return to the batting-heavy approach favoured by Eoin Morgan, and find Brook a place in the side without a big-name batting casualty.
The Mott/Buttler logic has been that England’s weak suit needs strengthening, their bowling having effectively cost them at last year’s World Cup in the UAE.
England’s long-time strong suit, however, does not look quite the consistent banker that it has been. Jason Roy is at home, out of nick and dropped, and Bairstow is sidelined. Buttler, Liam Livingstone and Ben Stokes will all be back in the XI in Australia, but the first two are returning from injury and the latter has played very little white-ball cricket in the past 18 months.
Each may still rise to the occasion Down Under but in Brook, England have a player whose case is becoming too strong to ignore.
