Harry Brook withdraws from Test series against India due to personal reasons | Cricket

England’s rising batting sensation Harry Brook will miss the entire five-match Test series against India, which begins from January 25 onwards in Hyderabad. The Delhi Capitals batter will return home “with immediate effect for personal reasons,” as revealed in a statement released by the England and Wales Cricket Board on Sunday.

“Harry Brook is set to return home with immediate effect for personal reasons from the England Men’s Test tour of India. He will not be returning to India. The Brook family respectfully requests privacy during this time. In light of this, the ECB and the family kindly request the media and the public to respect their wish for privacy and refrain from intruding on their private space,” read the statement.

Brook was part of the England camp in the UAE, where the Ben Stokes-led side practised in simulated conditions to that of the sub-continent. The team is slated to arrive in Hyderabad, the city that will host the opening game of the series, on Sunday, January 21. The Indian team, on the other hand, had reportedly arrived in the city on Saturday.

ECB is yet to announce Brook’s replacement in the Test squad, but his absence will be a major blow for England. Since his debut in Test cricket in September 2022, the 24-year-old has emerged as a pivotal player in the Bazball era. His career run tally of 1181 runs, scored in just 12 matches, is the most amassed by an England batter during the period. The tally comprises four centuries and seven fifties. Three of those centuries came in just his second Test series, in Pakistan, where he accumulated 468 runs in three matches. His performance had led Stokes to call him as the next Virat Kohli in world cricket.

However, against a lethal Australian attack at home in the Ashes last year, Brook had incurred an odd series where he averaged 40 in nine innings, with four fifties – one of them a crucial 75 scored in a run chase in Leeds, followed by a knock of 61 in Manchester which he admitted wasn’t proud of, and the other a 91-ball 85 at the Oval. En route to his fifty in Headingley, Brook became the fastest ever batter to amass 1000 runs in Tests, reaching the milestone in just 1058 deliveries across 17 innings.