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New red ball thrust into his hand by Ben Stokes, Sam Cook took a moment to steady himself. Breeze blustering at his back from the Radcliffe Road End as he settled at the top of his mark, the seamer inhaled and exhaled, releasing the nerves, readying the seam sinews. A bowler’s approach can be a lonely trek at times, forced to plough a lone furrow and till and toil, but this could hardly have been a kinder start to a Test career, four slips and two gullies waiting, a mighty total already on the board.
Right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot, and onwards into the gather. Up, down, limbs whirling into work. Down came the delivery to settle the nerves; Cook on the money, as he was always likely to be.
Around Trent Bridge, glances flashed to the speed gun, eager eyes wondering what the radar had registered. Such had been the discourse around what a seamer of supreme skill couldn’t do rather than what he could that much of the focus on his first formative strides in Test cricket was always going to be on the velocity rather than the venom – 81mph was solid enough.
The Nottingham assembly cooed approvingly as he warmed to his work. Three boundaries in his first over suggested a rude awakening but the drawing of two inside edges promised more, and with his 14th ball, it arrived. Ben Curran propped forward to a ball that wobbled down and seamed away, a friendly peck of the outside edge smooched safely by Harry Brook at second slip. Cook was up and away.
This was perhaps a perfect Test for the Essex bowler to prove his worth, a placid pitch but callow opposition making early inroads key. Under Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum, England’s radar love has rivalled that of Golden Earring, a preoccupation with pace borne from a desire to build a seam unit capable of winning in Australia. Cook is an oddity among recent debutants in his mastery of the softer skills; the twin scalpels of swing and seam prodded more gently at the batter but no less damaging. Where others have been picked on potential, the 27-year-old has forced his way in on a weight of wickets and a reputation in the county game as a top-order torturer.
The speed gun may show one thing but the simple statistics evidence a consistent new-ball threat. Stokes trusted his ability, Cook the first England seamer to take the opening over of an innings on debut since Martin McCague in 1993. His early scalp of Curran was the standout moment of a six-over initial burst that saw him beat both edges of the bat with relative regularity, a few outswingers mixed in alongside the wobble-seam ball used to extract Zimbabwe’s opener. It was the sole wicket to fall as Zimbabwe made good progress to 73-1 at lunch in reply to England’s 565-6 declared.
If Cook’s debut feels overdue at the age of 27, it is partly due to the stocks that England have now really developed. When James Anderson was told he was surplus to requirements last summer, so began a sort of hot-housing to germinate the seam saplings that McCullum and Stokes hope will grow into match-winners against India and, particularly, Australia. It is a process that has so far worked well, Gus Atkinson and Brydon Carse sailing relatively smoothly so far, with a fit-again Josh Tongue making his return here, too. An attack of absentees would include Chris Woakes – back playing for Warwickshire – Mark Wood, Jofra Archer and Carse, with the likeable Matthew Potts left out, too. Keeping all fit and firing will be key but England hope they finally have the stable of horses required to compete in Australia.
Cook could yet come to offer them something different. Woakes is of a similar speed and skill yet has endured a wretched record overseas, loquacious at home with Dukes in hand but struggling to get the Kookaburra ball to talk. By contrast, the Essex man was the standout tourist Down Under with the England Lions in the winter, eschewing franchise offers to press his case in red-ball cricket. Australian surfaces of late have offered more to bowlers of his style than in the past, with the recent success of Scott Boland – a touch quicker and taller but with a similar modus operandi – perhaps giving him his best hope of a prominent Ashes role. There is plenty more to come in this Test and beyond before then but Cook is off to a rock-solid start.
English (US) ·