sport news From Granny's garden to the heat of the Ashes! Harry Brook's path to greatness trends now
Not long after a maiden pilgrimage through Wawa’s garden was complete, the family knew they had a rare talent in their midst.
Wawa being the name that came out when a toddling Harry Brook attempted to say grandma. Had it been a reverse ramp, no doubt he’d have nailed it.
The walk across the back lawn leads directly on to the outfield of Burley-in-Wharfedale Cricket Club, Yorkshire and has been completed a thousand times since by one of England’s Ashes combatants.
There used to be a back fence that provided a barrier from garden to cricket pitch many moons ago, but no one other than Pauline Brook, Harry’s grandmother, remembers it being there.
‘Well, what was the point of one?’ Pauline asks Mail Sport rhetorically. ‘I had three sons and a husband all trailing in and out.’
Pauline Brook (pictured), Harry's grandmother, showed Mail Sport where the England star first learned to play the game
Brook is now playing innovative shots at the highest level, and looks destined to be England's next superstar
It has provided two generations of Brook children with a clear pass to their own cricketing Mecca. But it was when Harry stepped out that his late grandfather Tony realised one of them was on an altogether different journey.
Tony, a gifted cricketer himself, recognised talent when he saw it, and clearly an investment opportunity too, placing two bets with William Hill when Harry was just four: the first that he would play for Yorkshire, the second that he would play for England.
The wagers are said to have been between £100-£1,000 apiece, although the family do not wish to discuss the amounts, merely acknowledging that the second of two undisclosed sums was paid out in 2022 when Brook made his international debut.
The windfalls were shared between Harry and Tony’s three sons — Harry’s father David, and uncles Richard and Nick — in recognition that all the family have played a part in his success. All four were in the Burley XI when Harry made his first-team debut 10 years ago this month.
‘As soon as he could stand up, he would hit a ball, whether it be with a banana, a hair brush, whatever,’ says Pauline, recalling the laughter that filled the living room as a young Harry whizzed strokes up and down it. Richard takes up the story: ‘From being two, gripping a mini cricket bat, his hands the wrong way round, he smacked it here, there and everywhere. He looked something different at such a young age.
‘Once he got to be seven, eight, nine, you’d watch him playing junior cricket and he’d be hitting the ball three or four times further than anyone else. We used to have two games going on at once in those days, with the junior wicket right down the bottom of the ground, but he would be belting sixes into the middle of the other match and so that had to be knocked on the head.’
From the age of seven, hours were spent hitting a cricket ball attached to Wawa’s washing line by a piece of rope. A dozen yards from the back door, he perfected every shot in the book, coached by his dad and grandfather, who was coach with Burley’s junior teams.
More formal practice sessions would take place 200 yards away in AstroTurf nets, subsidised by a £50,000 ECB grant, which Harry and his mates would insist on watering to make the ball zip off the surface quicker. He lived and breathed cricket at Burley, escaping his own household of three sisters to stay with his grand- parents for long weekends throughout the summer months.
‘I’m not flattering myself,’ Pauline smiles. ‘It was all to do with the cricket ground, but he loved to be here.’
On the day that Mail Sport is invited into the Burley pavilion for coffee, Shane Etherington, one of the club’s committee members, is leaning on the bar awaiting a delivery from the brewery originally scheduled to arrive before the derby match against Otley the previous weekend. More than 150 spectators had turned up that day, the majority keen for a pint or two after the home side secured victory. Pumps dry, it took multiple dashes to other local establishments to stock up and quench thirsts.
Brook (bottom row, third from right) starred for Burley cricket club as a youngster, and immediately stood out from the rest of the team
The result was different in the corresponding Airedale and Wharfedale League fixture last July, when Brook made a rare appearance following some cunning from his uncle Richard.
Whenever not on duty with Yorkshire or England at weekends, he can be found in his Burley club shirt watching the first XI. Burley had long since given up asking for clearance for Brook to play for them given an ascent that had taken him from their bosom to the cusp of Test selection. But they pulled a fast one instead, naming him on the official team sheet at the toss time of 12.30pm without his knowledge and then instructing him to grab his kit bag.
After it was agreed that he would bat at No 7 and open the bowling, he found himself in at 54 for five, and made 21 off 21 balls, as the home side were skittled for 158.
A couple of new-ball wickets, coupled with two for his uncle Nick, left Otley in an even worse predicament, with half their side out for 45. Later, at 96 for eight and 133 for nine, it appeared the game was won, only for the visitors to get home with two balls to spare following an unbroken 26-run stand for the final wicket.
Brook’s shirt from his time as England Under 19 captain adorns one of the walls inside the red-brick clubhouse that has stood in the heart of this picturesque village since 1938. On the opposite wall, a list of Burley’s own captains, including three Brooks.
‘We are so proud of the fact that you can do all of this without moving clubs,’ says Pauline, referencing the fact that it was not until he was established on the professional staff at Yorkshire that her grandson turned out in any of the county’s bigger leagues, playing a handful of matches for Bradford and Bingley in 2019.
The affinity runs deep. To the extent that Harry ribs her for not watching him play on Saturdays — the recent Test match against Ireland when train strikes left her stranded in London, an exception — because she’s more interested in the fortunes of Burley than England. ‘Well, I’m loyal,’ she quips.
The brief nature of Brook’s visit to the crease at Lord’s appears to have ruined his chances of becoming the fastest player to 1,000 runs in Test history. His unbeaten nine took his overall tally to 818 from 11 innings, across seven matches.
