S Berry: Pollock in full flow as Cork dries up (10 May 1998)

10 May 1998

Pollock in full flow as Cork dries up

By Scyld Berry

AT the Port Elizabeth Test of 1995 Dominic Cork was on top of the world, or as near to it as any England bowler has been since Ian Botham and Bob Willis. It was the week after Christmas, but for Cork it had been Christmas every day since his Test debut at Lord's, when he had taken seven for 43 and been man of the match against West Indies.

It was the best return by any England bowler on debut, and yet Cork has always been precocious. At home, he had to compete with two elder brothers, who played for Betley in the North Staffordshire league; at school he would bat throughout break in the playground. On his 20th birthday he took eight for 53 for Derbyshire. Test cricket was such a doddle he took a hat-trick in his third game, and made an unbeaten fifty against West Indies, and was man of the match again.

On this afternoon in Port Elizabeth, in an atmostphere more carnival than anything even the West Indian Test grounds can offer, he was still set fair to become the best all-rounder in the world, certainly among bowlers who could bat. As a cultural expression, not some promotion, multiracial church bands took up the main stand at St George's Park, and their trumpets and drums helped stir Cork to ever greater heights in defiance of bleeding toenails, as England ran through South Africa's second innings.

Starting before lunch, Cork bowled 20 consecutive overs of outswing and reverse-swing as Mark Ilott had broken down, leaving him and Peter Martin to do all the pace work. Cork didn't mind. He took three wickets for nothing, and reduced South Africa to 69 for six, as their batsmen did not like the ball swinging, and still don't. Only Gary Kirsten hung on, their left-handed opener, who will be a key man again this summer, for if he hangs on at one end, the rest of South Africa's batting will cobble enough runs for their strike bowlers to do the business.

Mind? No, not at all. As long as he is top dog and star of the show, Cork doesn't mind. During his half-year of Test cricket he had risen from fourth seamer to first, ticking off each honour on his way to the top, to being better than his elder brothers, to being as good as Ian Botham, his "greatest idol", whose pictures and videos he kept at home. Then Cork was taken off and the music stopped.

To that point Cork had taken five wickets per Test at 24 runs each; since then he has averaged three per Test at 38. The outswing, sharp and full-length, has been replaced by the impulse to be something more, ambition by over-ambition; to be a second Botham, a strike bowler banging in bouncers and knocking off heads; to be what he is not and cannot be as he doesn't have the physique or knees.

Where once was substance, there came to be bombast, a prima donna who checked out the TV cameras so as to be exhibitionist on taking a wicket, but one who could no longer deliver.

And the man who stopped Cork that day, and saw South Africa to a draw with Kirsten, was Shaun Pollock, with whom Cork has so much in common, and so little. They are both 6ft 3in, lean, and youngest sons; they both made their Test debuts in 1995. While Pollock is a Bachelor of Commerce from Natal University, Cork filled in with surprising success as commercial manager at Derby last winter.

But Pollock is in his Test side, and Cork is not. What is more, Pollock will step off the plane tomorrow as the finest all-rounder in the world. Whereas Cork has gone so far backwards since Port Elizabeth that he averages 20 with the bat and 30 with the ball in his 19 Tests, Pollock has steadily progressed to average 32 with the bat - all the runs made under duress as South Africa's top order is so wobbly, Kirsten apart - and 23 with the ball after his 21 Tests. Only a handful of Test all-rounders have ever been so much in credit: Imran Khan, Tony Greig, Keith Miller, Trevor Goddard, Garfield Sobers.

Whereas Cork's crisis came when he was in the England side, Pollock's came before he was promoted, when his wrist-action went wrong and he pushed the ball down leg side. But at Natal he had Malcolm Marshall to bowl with and coach him, a mentor denied to Cork.

Ever since his Test debut Pollock has been the whippiest of fast-medium bowlers, everything straight except for his inand out-swing, varying his pace, wicket-to-wicket, his wrist snapping out bouncers which leave batsmen nowhere to go and clang their helmets, fiery enough to strike sparks out of the Adelaide Oval and take seven for 87 in the absence of Allan Donald.

It is a stunning tribute to Donald above all, but also to Pollock, that only one century opening stand has been made against South Africa since their re-admission.

Pollock's father, Peter, was not only South Africa's most successful fast bowler before Donald, but a lay preacher who kept his son on the straight and narrow in Durban. Shaun had an elder brother too, Gavin, six years his senior, who took a lot of dismissing in the garden if Shaun was to get a bat. The red-head always seems to have channelled his aggression into his work not the wind. Cork is in your face verbally, Pollock in your ribs silently.

Now Cork, 26, is Derbyshire's captain, a top dog again, if only a local one, and has started well after the county's controversies of last summer, with a clean slate, but no Michael Slater, and few other batsmen either. Having to think of and care for others is usually the best thing that can happen to a personality, and the first rejection he has known - in marriage and in cricket - may prove beneficial in the end.

As yet, however, England can offer no rival to Pollock as the best all-rounder of the moment, which they might have done.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)