Stats - Brook's brilliant start to Test career
But Brook showed no sign of nerves. He got off the mark with a clip off his pads in his second delivery. His first boundary came off his fifth delivery. Matt Henry found the outside edge of his bat but it went through the slip cordon. How New Zealand would hope that it had gone to one of the catchers. Since then it was the Brook show all the way.
England were reeling at 21 for 3 when Harry Brook walked out to bat to join Joe Root in the middle on Day 1 of the second Test against New Zealand in Wellington. With the wickets of Zak Crawley (2), Ben Duckett (9), and Ollie Pope (10), New Zealand pacers Matt Henry and Tim Southee had their tails up.
But Brook showed no sign of nerves. He got off the mark with a clip off his pads in his second delivery. His first boundary came off his fifth delivery. Matt Henry found the outside edge of his bat but it went through the slip cordon. How New Zealand would hope that it had gone to one of the catchers. Since then it was the Brook show all the way.
In the next over, the talented right-hander hit a hat-trick of fours off Southee. He made his intentions clear by skipping down the track for the third boundary.
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Brook was Player of the Match in the first Test with back-to-back half-centuries to help England to a 267-run win.
He continued the remarkable start to his England Test career with a magnificent unbeaten knock laced with 24 fours and five sixes. His 184 came off 169 balls.
Alongside former skipper Root, he helped steer England out of trouble to 101/3 at lunch.
Brook, in particular, and Root then put on a dazzling display of "Bazball" -- the attacking cricket England are now renowned for under coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes.
They put on 294 in an unbeaten partnership that left New Zealand with no answers. There was no let-up as the afternoon wore on with Brook adding to his three previous centuries against Pakistan in December.
With a dazzling display of strokeplay, Brook broke former India batter Vinod Kambli's 30-year-old world record for scoring the most runs after 9 Test innings. He became the first player to score 800 or more runs in his first nine Test innings. Kambli held the record previously with 798 runs in his first nine Test innings. He had four centuries including two double hundreds.
Brook also went past legends like Herbert Sutcliffe (780 runs in nine innings), Sunil Gavaskar (778 runs in nine innings) and Everton Weekes (777 runs in nine innings).
Brook currently has 807 runs at an average of 100.88. Only Gavaskar (129.66) had a better Test average than Brook after nine Test innings.
Root was more steady but no less decisive, slapping his 29th Test century but first in eight Tests. In the end, only the rain could stop them. Brook was unbeaten on 184 off 169 balls and Joe Root was batting on 101 off 182 balls when rain forced early stumps with England at 315 for 3 after 65 overs.
Brook's 184* is also the highest individual score by an Englishman in Wellington. The previous best was Derek Randall's 164 in 1984.
Brook rated his Wellington knock as the best of his fledgling Test career given England's precarious situation when he came in to bat.
"We lost three early wickets, which isn't ideal, but then I came out and tried to counter-punch a bit and be as positive as we could be. Thankfully it came off," said Brook.
