Brook ballistics bail out England after stunning top-order collapse

There was a strong westerly wind blowing across the Bay Oval on Sunday afternoon. If you happened to cock your ear to the breeze during the first hour of play, you would have heard - clear as day - the sound of mocking laughter, floating across the Tasman Sea and down through the shires of Hobbiton.

In a contest billed as the official start of the Ashes phoney war, England's Australia-bound top-order were producing a stunning false start. Jamie Smith, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Jacob Bethell - Ashes bankers, bolters and, as the Aussies might now contend, bottlers - all found themselves caught up in a catastrophic collapse of 10 for 4 in 5.1 overs that was precisely as serious as the discourse that it will generate.

Jos Buttler soon joined the procession at 33 for 5, and it was a measure of the nonsensical scenario that - when Sam Curran nicked off at 56 for 6, to become the fourth wicket of Zak Foulkes' remarkable maiden spell in ODI cricket - the time back home in the UK, thanks to the peculiarities of daylight-saving, was 1.59am: in other words, one minute prior to the contest's original start-time.

And yet, making light of this rip in the space-time continuum, there was Harry Brook - England's white-ball captain, Test vice-captain-elect, and a man in no mood to let circumstance dictate his game-plan. His response to such extreme adversity was to club each of his first 36 runs in boundaries - en route to a startling lone-wolf innings of 135 from 101 balls that turned an impending humiliation into an almost serviceable total of 223 in 35.2 overs.

It was Brook's fourth century in the country, following his three hundreds across two previous Test tours, and - given the circumstances - it was more extraordinary even than his 186 at Wellington in 2023 which, for those who witnessed that onslaught, is saying something. He blazed a total of nine fours and 11 sixes - including three in a row off Jacob Duffy to reach his hundred from 82 balls, and four more thereafter, as he juiced 80 runs from England's final two wickets in an innings in which just one other batter scored more than 6.

That man was Jamie Overton, who contributed 46 from 54 balls in a seventh-wicket stand of 87 that wrested the momentum back from New Zealand, after Foulkes and Matt Henry had rumbled their way through 15 new-ball overs in a row. His performance had distinct echoes of a previous tussle with New Zealand - on Test debut in 2022, when he had arrived at a near-identical 55 for 6 and partnered Jonny Bairstow with a career-best 97.

Once again, Overton fell short of a milestone in this innings, as he chipped a Duffy slower ball to cover, whereupon Brydon Carse joined the procession of Ashes-bound players by cutting his first ball straight to the returning Kane Williamson at point.

And to think Mitchell Santner hadn't even been sure whether bowling first was the sensible option. Henry's first ball of the match immediately laid any doubts to rest as he bowled Smith through the gate with a perfect inducker, and one that will have roused a few memories of Rory Burns' catastrophic start to the 2021-22 Ashes proper.

Foulkes then ripped into the contest the first-over wickets of Duckett, caught flinching outside off for 2, and Root, who stepped into a wild drive and was also bowled by lavish seam movement. Two overs later, Bethell too had his off stump plucked out by a jaffa, and there seemed no earthly way for England's innings to pull out of its death spiral.

Brook, though, had other ideas. His 135 out of 223 comprised 60.53% of England's innings, outdoing Robin Smith's legendary167 not out against Australia in 1993. Ominously for England, however, that knock had been unable to stave off ultimate defeat.