"He told me, 'You're a Test player'" - Harry Brook on conversation with Brian Lara before moving to open the innings

England and SunRisers Hyderabad star Harry Brook has revealed why head coach Brian Lara asked him to open the innings after a couple of low scores in the middle order. Brook stated that the strong start he has had to his Test career prompted the West Indian legend to urge him to bat at the top.

The 24-year-old batted in the middle order in his first two outings and managed just 16 runs. However, he smashed a hundred in only his second innings at the top of the order, against the Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden Gardens.

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Speaking to ESPN Cricinfo, the Yorkshire batter spoke about the conversation he had with Lara:

"He told me, 'You're a Test player'. He knew that I could face the swinging ball and adapt to it. So he sent me up top. I've never really done it before, and in my second game I got a hundred."

Reflecting on the hundred against KKR, Brook said he decided to try hitting the ball hard and that he wanted to bat through the innings. The youngster also credited Aiden Markram and Abhishek Sharma for their aggressive batting, saying:

"I just thought, 'Sod it, I'm going to try and hit the ball hard.' That came off to start with. Their spinners are potentially the best in the competition, so I tried to get off strike to them and thankfully, we had a couple of good partnerships through the middle. We had a chat at one of the timeouts, where I was like, 'I'll try to bat through so that anybody else coming in can be positive, and then I'll look to try to take the seamers down.' Markram and Abhishek really helped me by playing positively, and it all kind of fell into place."

The Englishman shared 72-run partnerships with both Markram and Sharma as the SunRisers set a daunting 229-run target for the hosts. They eventually emerged victorious by 23 runs.

"I'd have liked to have done a little bit better" - Harry Brook

Having scored only 163 runs in eight matches, the 24-year-old hopes to have an improved second half of IPL 2023.

"I'd have liked to have done a little bit better," Brook said. "Obviously, I had that one good innings, but I haven't really done anything else. That has been frustrating, but hopefully I can turn that around in the second half of the competition."

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SRH will next face KKR in Hyderabad on Thursday, May 4.