England’s Test vice-captain Harry Brook is set to script history at Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) in the Boxing Day Test. While the Ashes 2025-26 is lost, Brook can achieve a personal milestone. He needs seven more runs to become joint second-fastest England batter to 3,000 Test runs (in terms of innings).
26-year-old Brook has 2,993 runs from 56 innings (33 Test). Despite the poor show on Australian soil, he averages 54.41 in Test cricket.
Brook will join Denis Compton on the list. In June 1949, he got to 3,000 Test runs from 57 innings (34 Tests). The top spot for England belongs to Herbert Sutcliffe who achieve the milestone from 52 innings (33 Tests) in 1930.
Overall, the record belongs to the legendary Don Bradman who did in just 33 innings (23 Test) in 1933.
Brook has struggled in his maiden Ashes on Australian soil. From six innings, he has scored 173 runs, including a solitary half-century which came in Perth.
Ponting says Brook has ‘frustrated’ England fans
The 26-year-old’s shot selection has left many baffled, including the legendary Australian captain Ricky Ponting who puts him in the same bracket as Joe Root.
“Look, I love Harry Brook. He's one of the best players in the world to watch, but I think with some of his dismissals, he's almost selling himself a bit short on how good he is," Ponting told host Sanjana Ganesan on the latest episode of The ICC Review.
"He doesn't need to do some of the stuff that he's doing. And I guess, I'm sure it’s going to be frustrating for an English fan as well, or even some of his teammates. You know, he's had a chance to sit back and watch Joe Root go about his cricket for the last 15 years. And to be fair, and this is no knock on Joe Root.
"Harry Brook's got every bit as much talent as Joe Root has. You see him trying to play little lap shots off Scott Boland against a yorker that could have easily knocked his middle and leg stump out of the ground when his team needs him to make a hundred and chase down 435."
Ponting feels Brook's mistakes cost them the Ashes 2025-26. He went on to say that England won't admit it as they have shown resistance to criticism.
"I'll be critical on that, but I don't think I'll be any more critical than what his teammates would be or what his coach would be, because they should be critical of those sort of mistakes, because it's those sort of things that have cost them this Ashes series," Ponting noted.
"They probably won't admit it. They won't talk about it. They won't bring it up. They're very defiant with that sort of criticism.
"They'll always come back and say, ‘oh, that's the way that we play and we encourage them to play their natural games’. But you can't do that in Australia and you can't do it against Australia because if you give them an opportunity, you give them an inch, they'll take a mile.
"And we've seen that right the way through the series."
Will Brook end 2025 as England's highest Test run-scorer in calendar year?
Brook has scored 712 runs from nine Tests in 20225, averaging 44.50, including two centuries and four fifties. The only English batter ahead of him is Root who has 790 runs from as many Tests as the youngster. Root averages 56.42 in Tests this year. He has four centuries and one fifty including his maiden Test ton in Australia at The Gabba.