NASSER HUSSAIN: Harry Brook can relax knowing he’s here for long run with England Test debut looming

Harry Brook absolutely fits the bill to come into this England team as they seek to finish the international summer with a series victory over South Africa.

Brook has been unfortunate throughout his prolific 2022 season as there’s been people in that middle order scoring runs. He’s had to wait his turn.

But injury to Jonny Bairstow means he is coming into this set-up in exactly the right batting position for him to start a Test career.

There was talk of bringing him in to open at the start of the current series against South Africa, with Zak Crawley in the last chance saloon, but I wouldn’t have advocated that.

I believe the best place for him to start is at five, the place from where he put together a sequence of 967 County Championship runs in just eight matches.

The attacking way he plays fits the style in which the Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum regime want their players to go about their cricket.

If I had one piece of advice for him, it would be to tell him that things are not like the bad old days of England selection when I played.

Jonny Bairstow’s freak injury means Brook may also feature in England’s Test series against Pakistan in December

This England set-up believe in selection for the long term and not just going around in circles, which could not be more of a contrast to my era.

It was at the Oval that I got my first Test call-up in 1989. I was named in the squad but didn’t make the XI, as John Stephenson was chosen ahead of me.

When I left the match and drove back to Wantage Road to meet up with my Essex team-mates for a fixture against Northamptonshire, my captain Keith Fletcher told me that it was actually a blessing in disguise.

One-Test wonders end up at the Oval, he said. Stephenson ended up like that, as did a few others, and that was reflective of the short-term thinking that existed in the 1980s and 90s.

Nowadays things are very different. In fact, I would tell Brook that he’s not only in the team this week but also on the plane to Pakistan for December’s Test series.

If he’s good enough for this match, he is good enough for the next one in Rawalpindi too, so I would tell him to go out and play like he does for Yorkshire.

He’s not playing for his place, so allow him to relax, and go out and try to win a Test match for England.

The 23-year-old demonstrated his potential for England Lions against the Proteas last month

And if he gets runs in a game of this magnitude, against this South Africa attack — after taking a hundred off some of their back-up bowlers in England Lions’ warm-up win over the tourists last month — it will tell you that he’s a seriously good player.

To be honest, I just hope he’s still in nick. As a batter, you want to be picked when you’re at the top of your game and he would arguably have preferred his debut cap to have been a month ago when the runs were really flowing.

Instead, he has been fairly dormant as the spare top-six option in the first two Tests.

This hasn’t allowed him to keep his rhythm of red-ball batting.

But even though he’s had to wait his time, Brook will know that with Bairstow out of the Pakistan tour — due to the nature of his leg injury — that he will be in the team for a little while. That should allow him to express himself in the manner others have in what has been a really exciting resurgence by England in Test cricket.