Harry Brook relieved to lead England into last four after ‘the hardest winter of my life’

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Sometimes Harry Brook makes everything look easy but some of his recent experiences have been anything but painless, and after scoring a sublime century to steer his team into the World Cup semi-finals England’s white-ball captain described his past few months as “probably the hardest of my life”.

Brook endured a disappointing Ashes, scoring just two half-centuries and averaging 39.77, his second-worst in a Test series in which he has played more than a single innings. It was towards the end of his time in Australia that it was revealed he had got in to a drunken altercation with a nightclub bouncer in Wellington on the eve of the final fixture of his first overseas tour as an international captain, a controversy which has dogged him since.

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