Brown develops the variety to be a global T20 star
Pat Brown has a cherubic face but disguises his moves like a scheming poker player. During eight overs brimming with chutzpah and supreme skill on Twenty20 Finals Day, Brown confirmed his standing as one of the most effervescent young English short-form talents.
He has been outstanding all season but a combined four for 36 from eight overs to underpin Worcestershire’s triumph represented a different order of achievement.
Brown exhibits the toolkit that fast bowlers need to survive in an age in which T20 scores are rising inexorably. He has the capacity to reach about 85mph. This pace is not just effective in its own right; it also makes his slower balls more telling. He has two of them: the off-cutter and the knuckleball, an import from baseball which hangs in the air, then falls like a stone.
“Gut feel has worked well for me,” Brown said after Worcestershire’s inaugural T20 Blast title. “One of the things I’ve tried to do is let someone whack me before I change what I do. There’s no point me trying to bowl five different deliveries an over beside cause not many people in the world can do that and execute all five. Generally I try to keep it simple and back my skills.”
Only a few bowlers – Australia’s Andrew Tye and Gloucestershire’s Benny Howell – have mastered the knuckleball, illustrating the precocity and control of Brown, who turned 20 just last month and is still studying at Worcester University.
He honed it working with Matt Mason, Worcestershire’s former bowling coach. “I found it fairly easy just to bowl it, but to bowl it at guys who are trying to whack you out of the park and with all the out- noise – it takes a lot of practice to back yourself,” Brown explained.
Like a baseball closer, Brown is best when the stakes in a game are highest. He took three wickets, yielding just a solitary run, in the 19th over of the first semi-final against Lancashire. In the final, he conceded just nine from two overs at the death. This season, his economy rate in the last five overs was just 7.21 – 2.5 runs an over under the overall average in the 2018 Blast, according to Cricviz.
And so lifting the trophy was an apt ending to a remarkable first full season in the T20 Blast. Brown ended with 31 wickets at 13.35. Only one bowler, Alfonso Thomas, has ever taken more in a Blast season.
Yet Brown and his multifarious gifts could easily have been lost to English cricket. At the age of 18, he was without a county contract. Now, the shifting sands in the global game mean that blooming talents can rise quicker than ever.
Before the next county season, Australia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa and the UAE all have domestic T20 leagues. Scouts in all have been alerted to Brown’s gifts.