Dominic Cork - England's go-to man during the dark days

Dominic Cork

As cricket lovers, we marvel at the sheer artistry of those great cricketers who revivify our sagging spirits from the mundane to exalted heights with their sublime and graceful cricketing skills. For an aficionado, watching those maestros bewitch and bedazzle the crowd with their unsullied and effortless game is akin to contours of a fabled story.

In the wonderful world of cricket, there is also a breed of cricketers who aren’t exactly bestowed with a generous portion of god-gifted talent but strive every sinew to make most of their limited skills on view. England‘s former bowling all-rounder Dominic Cork certainly belongs to the second category of cricketers.

Dominic Cork, born on seventh of August 1971, took 131 Test wickets at a healthy average of 29.81 for England. In One-Day cricket, he played 32 games and snared 41 wickets at 33.36. Cork was also a useful batsman lower-order down the order.

More than the wickets he took and the runs he made down the order, it was Cork’s ability to deliver the goods under a pressure-cooker situation that shone like a beacon throughout his cricketing career. Here was an in-your-face cricketer who had an incontrovertible self-belief in his ability and willpower to bleed to his bones for the sake of his County and Country.

Dominic Cork made his County debut for Derbyshire in 1990. His breakthrough year in first-class cricket came in 1991 when he took 57 wickets at a highly impressive average of 25.61. He followed that up with 48 wickets at 28.45 in first-class cricket in 1992.

In the year 1992, he also made his One-Day debut for England against Pakistan. However, those were the dark days of English cricket and that meant Cork’s international experience was restricted to just four more One-Day games in the next three years.

It was in the 1993 Benson and Hedges final against Lancashire that Cork’s ability to rise to the big occasion came to the fore. At the hallowed turf of Lord’s cricket ground, he wowed the capacity crowd with a belligerent knock of 92. The 20 year old, Cork came to the crease with Derbyshire tottering at 66 for 4. Instead of wilting under pressure, Cork with a warrior-like tenacity handled the wizardry of Akram and the consistency of Defreitas with aplomb. With a calm head on his shoulders, he also bowled well in the death overs and took the wicket of Watkinson at a crucial juncture of the match.

On expected lines, the English cricket media that was in search of a new hero went gung-ho about the young prodigy and gave him the tag of “new Ian Botham“.

In the 90s, every young cricketer who showcased some promise as an all-rounder was compared to the legendary all-rounder, Ian Botham in England.

Indian cricket fans caught a glimpse of Cork when he and his partner in crime, Chapple combined together to wreak havoc against India A in 1994-95.

Even the likes of Ganguly, Dravid and Mazumdar couldn’t pass the litmus test of facing the indomitable duo of Cork and Chapple. Both of them bowled with a free-spirit of zest and verve in the series. By thumping India 3-0, in some ways, England A exacted sweet revenge for the 3-0 humiliating defeat suffered by the senior side in 1992/93.

In fact, Indian fans rubbed their eyes in disbelief that English selectors even in a bid to bolster an injury-hit England set-up Down Under didn’t select either Chapple or Cork. At that time, it seemed like England would select every medium-pacer eligible to play for England, but not Cork or Chapple.

England’s selectors finally plumped for Cork during the crucial second Test against West Indies at Lord’s in 1995. After losing the first Test, England was in dire-need of a new hero and in his debut test itself; Cork provided them with plenty to cheer about.

In the first innings of his debut test, Cork took only one wicket. However, in the second innings by bowling from the nursery end, he blew away a formidable West Indies’ batting line-up with a dazzling spell of 7 for 43. Dominic Cork bowled with a dash of bravado and adventurism to help England win a memorable match.

Cork followed up his heroics at Lord’s with a hat-trick at Old Trafford. In his heydays, Cork was a bowler who swerved it late and away from the right-handed batsman. But at Old Trafford by getting a bit of shape back into the right-handers, he sent Richardson, Murray and Hooper packing back to the pavilion to complete a memorable hat-trick.

In that series against West Indies, Cork was England’s chief wicket-taker, as he took 26 wickets at 25.42. By the end of the year in 1995, England embarked on a tough tour to the Rainbow nation. South Africa, with a battery of pace-merchants in their ranks was always going to come hard at the Englishmen. But England made a good fist of that series, as going into the last match at Cape Town, the series was still deadlocked at 0-0.

In the final test, on a result-oriented track, Cork and company helped England to make a spirited comeback after being dismissed for a paltry score of 153. Unfortunately, when South Africa’s score read 171 for 9, England’s seamers fell into the trap of trying too much of short stuff at the number 11 batsman, Adams and all the bowlers lost their radar.

It led to Paul Adams and the wicket-keeper batsman, Dave Richardson taking advantage of some insipid bowling to help South Africa make a smart recovery from a precarious position. In the end, the last wicket partnership between Adams and Richardson proved to be the telling difference in South Africa winning the final test and the series.

In the 1996 World Cup held in the subcontinent, Cork was let down by niggling injuries. However, he was the only English pacer who bowled some heart-stirring spells on lifeless tracks and took wickets. Cork must have been devastated that because of persistent injuries, he missed the crucial quarterfinal game against Sri Lanka. England certainly missed their talismanic cricketer’s services in the quarterfinal encounter against the marauding cricketers from Emerald Isles. It was also the time when Cork had a rough time on personal front.

Dominic Cork on his personal life, “It should have been one of the greatest moments of my life. Here I was playing for England in New Zealand in 1997, looking forward to answering those who had doubted my workrate. But even as I tried my hardest on the pitch, my life was in disarray: my marriage was falling apart and that was all I could think of. I was 25, my first wife and I had married young and I was away a lot of the time. It was no one’s fault that our marriage didn’t work – these things happen – but on that tour I couldn’t concentrate. My son was two and I was worried that he wouldn’t know who I was because I was away for so long. I just kept thinking that I had to get home and see him. Walking out of the tour was a very difficult choice to make. I know that some of my team-mates weren’t happy but there are times when you have to put yourself ahead of the game and this was one of them.”

To make it worse for Cork, he was dogged by injuries in 1997. He made a successful comeback into the team by taking 18 wickets at the cost of 31.83 against the mighty South Africans in 1998. It wasn’t just as a bowler that he shone like a beacon against South Africa. Even with a willow in hand, he made some useful scores. With his good showing against South Africa, to some extent, he answered his critics like Boycott who had termed him as a “show pony.”

Cork though, found it difficult to leave an indelible mark during the Ashes tour to Australia in 1998-99. He took only 4 wickets in that series and was dropped after the WACA test. Strangely, every-time he bowled to the left-handed opening batsman, Mark Taylor, he settled into a nice groove by bowling line and length. But he invariably struggled against right-handed batsmen by drifting onto their pads. No wonder, he snared Mark Taylor’s wicket three times in the series.

Subsequently, Cork was left out of England’s World Cup squad. It turned out to be a disastrous World Cup for England, as England was eliminated during the group stages of the tournament itself. The writer still feels that England made a huge mistake by not plumping for the likes of Caddick, Cork and White. Instead, they went-in for bits and pieces cricketers, but that strategy flopped miserably.

When the Caribbean team took a 1-0 lead in the Wisden trophy in 2000 in England, everyone suddenly seemed to remember the forgotten-hero, Cork and he was selected to play the second test at Lord’s. Cork, with a masterful all-round performance at his favourite hunting ground, Lord’s, proved to be the architect behind England’s stunning turnaround in the series.

In the enthralling encounter at Lord’s, Cork took 7 wickets for 52 runs. More importantly, his invaluable knock of 33 not out helped England to a nerve-wracking two-wicket win. While facing up-to the deadly fast bowling duo of Ambrose and Walsh, it seemed like Cork was the headmaster and his partner at the other end, Gough his obedient student. It was no doubt a sterling performance from Cork and that awe-inspiring victory against West Indies rekindled the flames of passion in English cricket.

Tragedy soon struck for Cork, as he was diagnosed with a back injury resulting in him pulling out of the tour to Pakistan. When he came back into the English set-up, it was crystal clear that all those injuries he had suffered over the years had taken a heavy toll on him. The cutting-edge in his out-swinger was missing from his armoury. Cork played his last international match in the Champions Trophy held in Sri Lanka in 2002.

Cork, continued to ply his trade in County Circuit till he was 40. He played for Derbyshire until the end of 2003 season. Unfortunately, he had to leave Derbyshire after serving them with dedication and devotion for 13 years in rather acrimonious circumstances. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Derbyshire was a County that was riddled with internal strife. By the end of 2003, Cork had enough of it and eventually joined Lancashire. It looked like Cork felt very uneasy with the burden of expectations of captaining a weak Derbyshire side.

With Lancashire, he did reasonably well in 2005 and 2006. He would be remembered forever by Lancashire’s faithful fans for his dogged resistance in their do-or-die game against Surrey in 2007. Chasing a daunting target of 485, Cork’s valiant knock of 47 almost took Lancashire to an improbable win, before they fell short by a mere 21 runs. It must have been a bitter-pill to swallow for all of Lancashire’s players, as for the umpteenth time, Lancashire was so near yet so far to win the coveted County Championship.

By the end of 2008 season, he was released by Lancashire. He soon joined Hampshire and played a major part in helping them to win trophies in shorter formats of the game. Hampshire fans won’t forget Cork’s herculean efforts in the final of Friends provident t/20 trophy against Somerset in 2010 for a long-time to come.

Even at the ripe age of 39, Cork took upon the gauntlet to bowl to the intimidating figure of Pollard and with a rip-snorter of a bouncer smashed his eye. It turned out to be a cliff-hanger of a match that Hampshire won on the basis of losing fewer wickets. The game against Somerset showed us even at the fag end of his career, the fire in Cork’s belly had not been extinguished. At the end of 2011 season, after 21 fruitful years in County Cricket, he retired from all forms of the game.

Cork won’t go down into history books as one of the greats of the game. But with sheer mental toughness and an unbridled enthusiasm to play cricket, he could lift his game to exalted heights and seize the moment on a big stage. Here was a cricketer with an abundance of courage, valour and an insatiable appetite to win matches, reserved his best when pushed to the wall.