England's young middle-order batter Harry Brook has been facing flak since using smog as a reason for his struggles against Varun Chakravarthy at Eden Gardens, Kolkata. In the second T20I which was played in Chennai, Brook got out in similar fashion and many including former cricketers Michael Vaughan, Ravi Shastri and Sunil Gavaskar took a dig at him for the "smog" comment. Ahead of the third T20I, Ravichandran Ashwin talked about Brook's comment as well and then gave him an advice on how to tackle the in-form Chakravarthy.
"There was no smog in Chennai. So, Harry Brook said he got out because of smog at Eden Gardens. I just want to tell one thing to Harry Brook - Harry Brook, keep this thing in mind that Varun Chakravarthy does not bowl leg-spin much, his main strength is googlies only," Ashwin said on his YouTube channel.
"Brook moved towards the leg-stump and got bowled out at Eden Gardens. Again, he covered the stumps and went on the front foot, he did not read the googly and lost his stumps in Chennai. If you see his hand, you can read the googly. It doesn't matter how the light is, if you don't see the googly coming, you won't be able to play it."
The 25-year-old registered scores of 17 and 13 in the first and second T20I respectively. It will be interesting to see how he approaches his innings in the third T20I on January 28 which will be played at Niranjan Shah Stadium, Rajkot.
Brook on criticism over his statistics against spin
Last week, Brook also talked about the criticism over his inability to handle the spinners in the format where there is assistance for them.
"Maybe I have got to rein in a little bit but we will see. I do have a method against it. It is just trying to do it consistently and a little more often. I come in in the middle order, so the first few balls I face are usually off-spin. So if I get out early, it is usually against a spinner, so maybe my stats are not as good against spin, and there is always going to be criticism in some parts," the 25-year-old said.
Meanwhile, Chakravarthy has been in fine form. He has taken five wickets in the series so far. Brook will be relieved that Chakravarthy is not a part of India's ODI squad. They play an ODI series next month ahead of ICC Champions Trophy 2024-25.