Harry Brook brings baggage and bravado to the biggest test of his captaincy yet

Brendon McCullum may find it "annoying" but it is impossible to preview Harry Brook's first World Cup as England captain without addressing that night in Wellington. The story has dominated the news agenda ever since the end of the Ashes, and provides the wider context for a tournament that will inform - if not determine - potential changes to England's leadership.

More than three months have passed since Brook was, in his words, "clocked" by a bouncer as he tried, unsuccessfully, to get into a nightclub hours before leading England in an ODI. But the ECB's attempts to keep the details in-house - and Brook's well-intentioned, if naive, efforts to take the rap for his team-mates - have inadvertently dragged the story out.

It reflects particularly poorly on managing director Rob Key, who was asked specifically before the Boxing Day Test about a video showing Brook and other England players at a rooftop bar on the night in question. "There wasn't any action, like formal action," Key said. "We've had four years where the players - actually, we've had none of these [disciplinary] issues."

But to focus on the cover-up, or the broader discussion around English cricket's relationship with alcohol, risks obscuring the root of the issue. It was a wild error of judgement from Brook to go out drinking the night before a game, one which called his suitability for the role into question and, by his own admission, left him lucky to remain in post.

There is more responsibility to captaining an international team than simply on-field leadership, and he must understand the weight that his words and actions carry. Perhaps it was telling that when Brook was appointed white-ball captain last April, Key admitted that the job had come "slightly earlier than expected" for Brook after Jos Buttler's resignation.

Brook himself does not seem overly fussed by the status or responsibility of the role: "If they'd have sacked me from being captain, then I'd have been perfectly fine with it as long as I was still playing cricket for England," he said in his mea culpa in Sri Lanka, an eyebrow-raising admission that revealed him to be a reluctant captain, and showed where his priorities lie.

The T20 World Cup comes at the end of a long winter: Brook has spent barely a week at home in the last four months since leaving for New Zealand. Not since 2014 have England gone into an ICC event led by an all-format player; that last instance ended with Stuart Broad's side humiliated by the Netherlands, and was the last T20 World Cup in which England failed to reach the semi-finals.

And yet, against a chaotic backdrop, Brook has assembled an England side that looks capable of going deep in this tournament. They have won ten of their last 11 completed T20Is, including the recent 3-0 win in Sri Lanka that showed their adaptability and resilience, and a favourable draw means that reaching the final four should be viewed as the bare minimum.

Brook's influence on the side has been obvious. He has heavily backed two of his former England Under-19s team-mates, Tom Banton and Will Jacks, and has loaded his side with spin options. Liam Dawson has been ever-present, and England have bowled more spin (108.2 overs) than seam (92.5 overs) since Brook took over with this World Cup in mind.

They should cruise through a group containing Nepal, West Indies, Scotland and Italy without breaking sweat, but the lingering concern is that they will be exposed against spin in the Super Eight in Sri Lanka. Their comeback win on Tuesday, set up by Sam Curran's battling fifty, was hugely impressive, but strong opponents would not have let England off the hook.

The greatest unknown is Brook himself. He drew a line under his disappointing Ashes with a stunning ODI century in Sri Lanka last month, and his record is genuinely world-class: along with Suryakumar Yadav and Tim David, he is one of three players who can boast over 1000 T20I runs at No. 4 or below while averaging 30-plus and scoring at a strike rate above 150.

But his decision to shift himself down to No. 5 in Sri Lanka was curious, defying the global trend of teams promoting their best batters up the order to maximise their opportunity to influence a game. It may help to shield him from top-quality spin but risks a repeat of the 2024 World Cup, when he faced only 92 balls across England's eight games and felt wasted down the order.

Still, he showed a glimpse of his scintillating best in Sri Lanka with an innings that could hardly have summed him up better. His 12-ball 36 in the second T20I featured some breathtaking six-hitting over extra cover and transformed a challenging equation of 87 off 47 balls into 36 off 27, but his premature dismissal left his innings feeling somehow incomplete.

Brook also has a curious relationship with India, where England's campaign will start - and, they hope, end. He was part of their miserable defence of the 50-over World Cup there in 2023, and missed England's 2024 Test series on compassionate leave; when England's white-ball teams toured last year, his comments about the smog in Kolkata left a target on his back.

He is also an outlier among his generation of England players in paying little interest to the IPL. He struggled for Sunrisers Hyderabad in 2023, saying he was happy to shut social-media critics up after his century for them, before failing to reach 30 in seven subsequent innings, and is serving a two-year ban from the league after pulling out at short notice last season.

The next four weeks will provide Brook with an opportunity to change the narrative - not only around himself, but English cricket more broadly. For all that Test cricket reigns supreme in England, this T20 World Cup matters: bilateral wins are all well and good, but these events are the true measure of progress or decline in white-ball cricket.

The ECB's internal review into England's 4-1 thrashing in Australia means that the tournament arrives with both Key and McCullum under significant scrutiny. They have both backed Brook heavily, first by appointing him captain, then retaining him after his infamous night out. Now, their futures rely on him and his team delivering.