‘I shut up Indian fans…’: Brook answers ‘rubbish’ words with smashing century | Cricket

Harry Brook was one of the first to set the auction table on fire ahead of IPL 2023. The England youngster, whose rapid rise in the last 12 months or so has been a topic of discussion in international cricket, was roped in by the Sunrisers Hyderabad for a whopping ₹13.25 crore. Needless to say, the expectations were always going to be high from Brook not only because of the auction price but also because of the form he had shown in Tests and T20Is.

Come IPL 2023, reality hit Brook. The attacking right-hander. His first three innings in the IPL were 13, 3, and 13. The 24-year-old’s struggle in the middle-order against spin promoted the SRH management to promote him at the top of the order and after a stutter against PBKS, the move paid dividends against Kolkata Knight Riders. Brook smashed his maiden IPL century off just 55 balls to lead his side to a 23-run victory.

He was in outstanding form even off the field, mincing no words ‘shutting up’ the Indian fans who spoke ‘rubbish’ about him on social media for not being able to score in his first three outings. “I was putting pressure on myself a little bit after the first few games. You go on social media and people are calling you rubbish. You start to doubt yourself a little bit. I just went out there with an ‘I don’t care’ mentality tonight and thankfully it came off. There are a lot of Indian fans out there who’ll say ‘well done’ tonight. But they were slagging me off a few days ago. Glad I could shut them up, to be honest,” Brook said in the post-match presentation.

Watch Video: Harry Brook ‘shuts up’ Indian fans ‘saying rubbish things’ about him

Brook was severe in the powerplay, going after Umesh Yadav and Lockie Ferguson like very few batters have in the IPL. He made room and constantly peppered the off-side boundary, leaving KKR captain Nitish Rana at his wit’s end. What made his knock more special was how he tackled Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy. He gave the spinners the due respect and continued to smash the KKR pacers to all parts of the ground.

Brook hit 12 fours and 3 sixes in his unbeaten 100-run knock that propelled SRH to a mammoth 228 for 4, which proved to be enough despite gallant efforts from KKR captain Nitish Rana (75 off 41) and Rinku Singh (58* off 31).

The talented right-hander said he is ready to bat anywhere but does feel opening the batting is the best time in this format.

“It was a special night. Thankfully we got over the line as well. Got a little tense in the middle. A lot of people say that opening the batting in T20 is the best time to bat. I’m happy to bat anywhere. I’ve had a lot of success batting at five. Made my name there. My four Test hundreds will have to be over this one. The crowd was phenomenal tonight. I enjoyed it. Great to be playing in such a great stadium in front of so many fans,” he added.