Forget the memes, Harry: those splayed stumps point to a man intent on glory

By strict formal logic, any serious defence of Harry Brook's stump-splaying dismissal 13 minutes before lunch on the fourth day at Lord's should be showy, ill-timed and based almost entirely on hot air and flimflam.

- Barney Ronay

You could probably also chuck in unapologetic and maddeningly super-cool, peering down from its balcony, guns out, wraparounds in place. Be where your keyboard is. This, mate, this is how we save colour match reporting. It's just the way I sidebar.

Brook will be chastised for that moment of weakness. He has already been mocked and memed on social media. It was a hugely frustrating way to get out, made all the more so by its context. England were 87 for three at the time and paddling for the interval, still semi-intact despite a high-grade opening spell from Mohammed Siraj and a bizarrely wicketless Jasprit Bumrah.

Brook and Joe Root were at the wicket, the match all set to veer decisively one way either side of lunch. At which point Brook decided it would be tactically smart to sweep an 83mph ball from Akash Deep, pre-programmed, already going down, and exposing his middle stump which was duly clanked out of the ground.

This was an act of such decorative abandon it felt like watching a pair of escapers crawling for the barbed wire fence, dodging the watchtower lights, only for one of them to decide to stand up and put on an impromptu feat of juggling with a sabre, two grapefruits and a bowling ball.

Brook was playing beautifully at the time, striking the ball with rare clarity on a tough pitch. The previous over from Deep he had gone four, four, six to move to 23 off 18 balls. Both of the first two boundaries came from the Hedgehog Sweep, rolling into a ball and scooping to fine leg, the second one almost for six.