Malan form increases World Cup clamour for Brook

AS Harry Brook walked out to bat at Old Trafford on Friday night, he received the kind of ovation that cannot have been experienced by too many of his fellow Yorkshiremen on excursions across the Pennines.

- Malik Ouzia

It followed Brook south, too, to Birmingham yesterday, where he made only eight runs in England's heavy defeat to New Zealand, but that is unlikely to quiet the noise when this four-match T20 series reaches its climax at Trent Bridge tomorrow.

Having been left out of England's provisional ODI World Cup squad, Brook, it seems, has entered the Jack Grealish Zone.

For those unfamiliar with the term, this is the region in which footballer Grealish found himself during Euro 2020: outside England's first XI amid fierce competition for places and, as a result, suddenly the subject of redoubled public support from a groundswell consensus that had found crystal clarity in a previously muddy debate.

Each time the then Aston Villa star emerged for one of his impact substitute appearances, Wembley produced the kind of sound not heard since One Direction last toured.

Gareth Southgate was wrong, they believed, and quite simply, Grealish had to play.