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Brook hoping for double England cricket and football triumph / Photo: © AFP
Brook hoping for double England cricket and football triumph
Harry Brook hopes to be involved in a special England cricket and football 'double' this weekend.
England will move to the top of the T20 world rankings by completing a 4-0 series victory over India in Southampton on Saturday.
And with a start time of 1330 GMT at Hampshire's headquarters, England white-ball captain Brook and his team-mates will have plenty of time to get ready to watch the nation's footballers face Norway in a World Cup quarter-final later in the day.
"To go world number one and England go into the semis would be pretty cool," said Brook. "We'll definitely be keeping a close eye on it and watching the game for sure."
T20 world champions India edged England by just seven runs in a Mumbai semi-final in March.
But this series has been a lopsided affair since the first game in Durham was washed out, with England winning by four wickets, 125 runs and nine wickets to go 3-0 up ahead of Saturday's finale.
"We want to go out there and beat them convincingly again," said Brook, whose quickfire 79 not out helped England cruise to victory with 37 balls to spare in Bristol on Thursday.
"But we've got to go to Southampton and try and assess the conditions as best we can. That's something we’ve done really well in this series so far and executed our plans.
"The one thing we’ve wanted to do in the last couple of years is adapt to conditions...T20 is never going to be easy and it’s a fickle game, but we’re playing some exceptional cricket."
With World Cup winners Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah and Suryakumar Yadav among those missing from this series, India have looked a shadow of the side that won the tournament just four months ago.
India also suffered a shock 2-0 loss to Ireland last month and this is now the first time since February 2019 they have lost two consecutive bilateral T20 series.
Assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate pulled no punches after the Bristol mauling, saying: "I don’t want to stand and defend the players and also be over-critical.
"But the onus is on the players to have the mindset that it is going really badly and look at the evidence in front of them."
S.Gorski--GL
