Harry Brook frustrated with England batting in ODI series defeat by New Zealand

Harry Brook admitted he is starting to get frustated at England’s topsy-turvy batting after they crashed to another ODI series defeat.

England put 400 on the West Indies in June and pummelled 414 in a dead rubber against South Africa last month, but in eight overseas ODIs in 2025 they have not batted out their 50-over allotment seven times.

In New Zealand, where conditions have assisted fast bowlers especially early on, England have failed to find the correct tempo and paltry totals of 223 and 175 have been overhauled with relative ease.

Jamie Smith, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Jacob Bethell all head to Australia next week along with Brook for a much-hyped Ashes, while Jos Buttler is regularly hailed as England’s best ever white-ball batter.

So their continuing frailties are puzzling to Brook who, when asked if he was irritated for the first time in his brief limited-overs captaincy, said: “Yeah, it is disappointing.

“You go round every single player there and you think, ‘bloody hell, there isn’t many teams that they don’t get into in the world’. It’s disappointing we haven’t performed as well as we could.

“Everybody in that batting line-up is good enough to be able to face a swinging and seaming ball. In my eyes, that’s just an excuse, and they’re good enough to be able to cope with that and score runs.

“It was only a couple of games ago against South Africa in the summer when we got 400, so we’re not a million miles away. It’s just about a couple of scores here and there and then we nail it down.”

After going 2-0 down with one to play in Wellington on Saturday, England have now lost six of their past seven ODI series and automatic qualification for the 2027 World Cup is not a formality.

Their position of eighth leaves them vulnerable to being overtaken by the Windies and Bangladesh and if that happens, England would have to enter a qualifying tournament to participate in the World Cup.

It would be quite the fall from grace for a team who have been near full strength recently but, with four wins in 14 ODIs, have been unable to turn around their malaise since winning the 2019 World Cup.

“It’s not too dissimilar to the way we play Test cricket,” Brook said. “We play aggressively in Test cricket and it’s not too far off.

“Obviously, we haven’t played much one-day cricket in the last however many years. I can’t quite put my finger on why we haven’t batted well enough. It’s just one of those things.”

England were famously demolished at the Sky Stadium – colloquially referred to as the ‘Cake Tin’ – in the 2015 World Cup, a nadir that led to Eoin Morgan transforming the fortunes of the white-ball teams.

Jofra Archer was a beacon of hope in Wednesday’s defeat but with the first Ashes Test in Perth three weeks away and the ODI series already lost, England might not risk him in the New Zealand capital.

“He gets in every team in the world,” Brook said. “So, he’s going to be good to watch for the rest of this winter.”

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