T20 World Cup: Will Jacks delivers for Harry Brook and England again

Will Jacks has already had quite the winter.

He made his Ashes debut in Australia, got engaged to his partner Ana in Sydney and now, at times single-handedly, is taking England towards the T20 World Cup semi-finals.

Which would he rank as his best moment?

«That is not for me to answer,» laughed his captain Harry Brook.

«But he has had three man-of-the-match awards this World Cup and I don’t think he has played his best cricket yet.»

Brook and Jacks go back a long way.

They were 15-year-olds when they played against each other at the famous Bunbury Festival – Jacks playing for the London schools’ side and Brook the north of England.

Jacks made 46. Brook took two wickets.

Four years later they were roommates with the Under-19s and now Jacks is keeping Brook’s first World Cup campaign as captain afloat.

When this tournament began with questions around Brook’s suitability to be captain after off-field controversy in Wellington, it was Jacks who was put forward to speak to the media to defend his mate.

Against Nepal, the right-hander hit 39 not out, without which England would have suffered one of the great World Cup shocks, and his first T20 fifty against Italy, a powerful 53 not out, pushed a tight game out of the reach of the Italians in their valiant chase.

His 21 with the bat and three wickets with the ball against Sri Lanka was another gift for Brook, coming on the captain’s 27th birthday.

England now sit one win from a World Cup semi-final.

«He is a very competitive lad,» said Brook. «He was annoyed when he got out tonight.

«After his first over he said ‘I always bowl better when I am annoyed’. That was one of the reasons I kept him on.

«He is that perfect player. He is the Jack of all trades who can do everything.»

Jacks’ Ashes was not all fairytale proposals below Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Off the field, he was one of the England players plastered across the front page of the Australian newspapers with a pint in hand in Noosa.

On it, he struggled with his two wickets in the third Test against Australia in Adelaide costing 212 runs. Across the series he took six wickets for 394 runs.

Jacks’ stubborn batting in Australia did show a side of his game that hinted at promise and now he is thriving as England’s T20 man for all seasons.

Backed by Brook on Sunday he was asked to open the bowling for England for the first time since a match against Australia in Barbados at the last T20 World Cup.

That day, after what Jos Buttler later described as a «gut feel», Aussie opener Travis Head – the man who cut and pulled him into submission in Adelaide – sent him onto the Kensington Oval roof in an over that cost 22 runs. England’s campaign never recovered.

This time his opening over cost only four, even that a boundary courtesy of a misfield.

Brook said it was a «last-minute» decision to give Jacks the new ball, the logic being that with a shorter boundary to the left-handed Kamil Mishara’s leg side it was better to have Jacks’ off-spin turning the ball away.

Typically, after that good first over, Jacks dismissed two right-handers in his next – the dangerous Kusal Mendis poking and chipping back a catch and Pavan Rathnayake charging and slicing a catch high to the off-side ring.

«Rathnayake’s been a very good player for them, and probably their best player of spin – the way that he runs down the pitch,» Brook said.

«To get him out first ball was a very crucial part in the game for us.»

Control was something often lacking with Jacks’ off-spin during the winter but here he delivered his most accurate spell.

Bowling four overs on the spin, he pitched 91% of his deliveries on the stumps or in the channel – the highest of any England match of his career.

His only bad ball, one which slipped from his sweaty hand, was pulled for six by Dasun Shanaka but later Jacks got his revenge by being the initial catcher in a brilliant relay grab with Tom Banton.

If his first three wickets put England on course for victory, the dismissal of Shanaka confirmed it.

«I love getting the responsibility with the ball,» Jacks said.

«It encourages me to get into the game and perform better.

«[Opening the bowling] is not foreign for me. And with a surface like that, I come in knowing what to do.»

Jacks has been given the nickname of Slim Shady by some England players during this tournament – a reference to his pre-tournament haircut and bleached blond hair. In the dressing room he has even been asked to rap.

Brook appears happy with his Jack of all trades. He is keeping this winter rolling on.