NASSER HUSSAIN: This may have been the toughest of Harry Brook’s three hundreds so far

That was a slightly more restrained century from Harry Brook than we saw at Rawalpindi and Multan, but these things are relative. You still look up at the scoreboard and he’s ticking along at 75 runs per 100 balls.

If anything, this was the toughest of the three hundreds he has made in this series. In the first Test, England were on the charge on that first day, when Brook was one of four centurions. In the second Test, they were 350 ahead.

Here in Karachi, they were up against it a bit more, and Brooks had to rescue their innings with the help of Ben Foakes. To go past David Gower’s record for an Englishman in Pakistan is phenomenal.

Harry Brook scored his third century in as many Tests for England in Pakistan on Sunday

His knock was different to his previous two tons in that he had to rebuild with Ben Foakes

It’s important to point out, though, that for or all his power hitting and innovation, Brook has all the fundamentals in place. His technique is good enough to keep out all types of bowling because he’s honed his game against the red ball playing with Yorkshire.

And that’s going to be very important next summer when Brook will face his biggest challenge yet – an Ashes series against Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Scott Boland armed with the Dukes ball in helpful conditions.

I do fear for players who think the best way into any side is by playing white-ball cricket. Even Suryakumar Yadav, the new batting star of India’s limited-overs sides, honed his game playing red-ball cricket for several years for Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy.

Brook loves batting, and he has learned the fundamentals playing county cricket for Yorkshire

Brook learned the fundamentals playing county cricket, and he’s got that Yorkie love of batting. I was live on air the other day talking to Ian Ward back in the Sky studio about Brook. He walked past me in the background and said: ‘Yes, Nas – I do love batting.’

One of his great skills is how quickly he picks up length from the spinners, which he achieves by standing lower in his stance – he’s taller against the seamers. So on slow pitches like these in Pakistan, if the slow bowlers are even a fraction short, he pounces. Then, if they go fuller to compensate, he belts them back over their head.

Even from a stationary position, he has long levers and a strong bottom hand, so he gets runs whipping it through the leg side. There’s a touch of Kevin Pietersen in that stroke – it’s almost the old KP flamingo.

I’ve really enjoyed his temperament too. You could see after he ran out Ben Stokes that he wasn’t going to let it get on top of him, just as you could see when he reached three figures that he wasn’t going to over-celebrate. Scoring runs is just what he does. In fact, it’s what he expects to do. That attitude should stand in him good stead for years to come.

Brook picks up length from the spinners really well – he expected to score runs when batting

He ran out his captain Ben Stokes but responded well after being given the thumbs up

A quick word about that run-out. You could see he expected the ball to go for four, so he and Stokes didn’t push the second run, but then he sold his captain a dummy. Stokes was about to explode, but then he realised it was the young gun out in the middle. He’s all about the culture of the team, so he just gave Brook the thumbs-up, which was a classy touch.

Brook apologised, but then gathered his thoughts again. Other players might have over-reacted to what happened. But Brook quickly moved on. He’s not going to get too down. Equally, he’s not going to think he’s suddenly made it.

Ever since Joe Root came into the side, English cricket has been craving a batter who can come in and make us proud of our system. Two or three years ago at The Oval, Root turned to me and said there was one bloke we should all be talking about more. That bloke was Brook. The way he’s played out here tells you Root was spot on.