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On nights like this, you wonder what Kevin Pietersen might usefully teach Harry Brook.
As England's new white-ball mentor watched on admiringly from the Utilita Bowl dressing-room, their captain inspired his team to a massive 119-run win over Sri Lanka with a scintillating 42-ball century, confirming his status as the world's most exciting all-format batsman.
Pietersen would have been thrilled to have played such an innings, and not just because he never made a T20 hundred for England.
On Instagram, Ben Stokes – who had pushed for Brook to replace him as Test captain, before the job went to Joe Root – evidently agreed: 'I don't think even the genius of KP could come close to what Harry Brook has talent-wise… You are an absolute freak, Harry.'
Brook's innings contained all the daring and verve that once made Pietersen an outlier in English cricket, and plenty of the power too: after the early loss of debutant Aneurin Donald for 12, including a third-ball six, he responded by pummelling 30 off an over from the left-arm spin of Dunith Wellalage. After that, the Sri Lankans looked broken.
Brook later admitted that he had been watching highlights of Pietersen's batting during the 2005 Ashes on his phone, marvelling at the way he hit the ball to unusual parts of the ground. 'Hopefully he can have a big impact on my career,' he said. 'It's awesome to have a man of his calibre in the changing-room.'
Harry Brook hit a scintillating 42-ball century to power England to victory over Sri Lanka
On nights like this, you wonder what Kevin Pietersen might usefully teach Brook
The only pity is that Brook and Pietersen never got a chance to bat together. Instead, Brook had to make do with the companionship of Jos Buttler, who followed his 131 off 64 balls here against India in July with a brutal 80 off 44, and looked well rested thanks to a month off after the Hundred final. On another night, he would have been the headline act.
But it was Brook who stole the show in the first of six white-ball games against the Sri Lankans, having insisted to head coach Brendon McCullum that he didn't want to sit out the series and take a rare breather after the Test series against Pakistan.
That was just as well for a crowd of over 11,000 in Southampton, where in three successive T20 internationals the locals have been thoroughly spoiled, witnessing England totals of 248 for three against West Indies last summer, 257 for three against India and now 254 for four – their third-, fourth- and fifth-highest scores ever.
When Brook reached 94 off 38 balls, he had a chance to equal Phil Salt's England-record for the quickest T20 century. But he could only slice Dasun Shanaka for two to deep point, and in the end had to settle for equalling Liam Livingstone's 42-ball effort against Pakistan at Trent Bridge in 2021.
His eventual 114 off 49, with 10 fours and six sixes, meant his last three T20 innings have brought him 288 runs without being dismissed. No one would bet against him breaking Indian Tilak Varma's world-record unbeaten sequence of 336 when these teams meet in Cardiff on Thursday because no bowler right now seems capable of stopping him.
'I feel like I've let myself down a couple of times this summer,' he said. 'Thankfully I didn't give up that opportunity today. It was a special feeling to get to three figures.'
Sri Lanka will need to improve quickly if they are to have even a sniff. Faced with a mammoth target, they were three down in the six-over powerplay, with Sonny Baker taking his first white-ball international wickets, and limped to 135.
This was their 13th successive T20 defeat by England, a sequence that stretches back a dozen years and now looks in danger of extending beyond the summer. The punishment may barely have begun.
