BROOK SIDE CLOSE

Harry stars with crock Woakes set for series finale

- by MIKE WALTERS

INJURED Chris Woakes was pacing up and down in his whites, his dislocated left shoulder in a sling, awaiting his Colin Cowdrey moment when the curtain fell.

Like everyone else, he will have to come back to The Oval today and find out if he is required to hit the winning run as a one-armed bandit.

Yes, it was massively frustrating for a sellout crowd that they were denied a fight to the finish which had been largely set up by Harry Brook’s momentum-changing 111 in 98 balls.

Brook scored a triple hundred in Pakistan 10 months ago but his 10th Test century was his finest England innings yet.

He was given a life on 19, when Mohammed Siraj stepped on the boundary cushion to concede six, but otherwise his hitting was crisp, clean and sumptuous.

But this gripping, mad series deserves a dramatic climax - and now the weather gods have seen to it that all cardiologists’ leave in south London is cancelled this morning.

If England need Woakes to pad up, it could be the most nervejangling climax since Cowdrey marched out to face West Indies in the final over at Lord’s in 1963 with his broken arm in plaster.

Cowdrey didn’t actually need to face a ball - David Allen saw out the final over as England, nine wickets down, clung on for a draw just six runs short of victory.