Sam Cook has reached a turning point in what is proving a very fine career. No, not because he is the only Cook at Essex for the first time. Instead, rather than waiting for England selection to come to him, he is determined to demand it by expanding his horizons.
Cook has been a stalwart of the domestic scene since emerging with Essex, aged 20, in 2017 with plenty of silverware to boot. He has won the County Championship twice, the Bob Willis Trophy, the Vitality Blast, and the Hundred.
His 265 first-class wickets cost less than 20 runs each. In fact, the statistician James McCaghrey revealed that, of all bowlers who have taken 200 County Championship wickets since 1990, Cook has the second-lowest average (18.04). The man ahead of him is Muttiah Muralitharan, and the only others below 20 are Mohammad Abbas, Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose. Decent company.
In recent years, he has become a superb white-ball bowler, too.
But while it is a remarkable CV that has been enough to earn selection for the Lions, the full England side has never come calling.
At 26, Cook is sanguine about this, but more determined than ever to play for England. He is neither particularly tall, like Ollie Robinson, or particularly quick, like the voguish Gus Atkinson and Josh Tongue, operating instead in the low 80mphs.
“I’ve always had good chats with England, through Mo Bobat and Luke Wright,” Cook tells Telegraph Sport. “And I’ve been told that pace isn’t an issue. The problem I’ve had is that the spot in the Test team that I am gunning for has been held down by the likes of Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad, Robinson.
“They are similar pace to me, and have been so good for so long, all-time greats who are so good at staying fit. The spots have tended to open up in the roles where England have tried to balance the attack. That doesn’t mean those spots will never open up.”
Cook is no longer considering Test cricket the only format he could represent England in. To that end, it has been a “very conscious decision”, which England support, to pursue opportunities in franchise cricket this winter, rather than play for the Lions. He played in the T10 League in the UAE last month, and will turn out for Joburg Super Kings in South Africa’s SA20 in the new year. He even put his name forward for the IPL auction, but did not make the cut.
“I’ve done the Lions the last couple of years and I wanted to try something different, expand my game, experience new conditions, new environments and play against the best players I possibly can this winter. I’m already picking up different bits, and it’s great to play in different conditions,” Cook explains.
“I have done that for a few winters and still have not been picked. It’s the definition of insanity isn’t it? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. I don’t want to stand still. I want to try to force my way in there and really look at how I can improve as a cricketer.
“Even putting my name forward for the IPL. I was realistic that it probably wouldn’t happen. But that time of year, April and May, has been my bread and butter in the Championship. I’m very proud of how I’ve performed, and don’t want to take it for granted. But I want to add strings to my bow, I’m trying to diversify my game. I don’t want to stand idly by and wait for things to happen.”
Cook is also determined to add a little pace. That might be “even one or two mph”, or ensuring that his fitness means he can bowl quicker for longer.
“That might mean managing how much I’m bowling,” he says. “I’m a bit older now and I want to manage my workloads so that I can be at my best and quickest for longer periods, rather than just getting through every game.”
This cuts into a view that Cook is unafraid to air: that the current volume of cricket at county level makes it impossible for a fast bowler to play every game in every format. That is something he has tried to do in recent years – last year, he missed just one Championship game through injury, and three games across the Blast and Hundred. He is Essex’s representative at the Professional Cricketers’ Association.
‘We need to play a bit less cricket’
“There are two sides to me speaking up on this,” he says. “As the rep, you are speaking on behalf of the dressing room, and they share that view. My genuinely held opinion regarding the longevity of the game and how we sustain county and first-class cricket, we need to play a bit less.
“I totally sympathise with county members who see it differently, but I would ask are we giving the supporters the best possible product that we can with the talent in this country? There are a lot of incredible cricketers in this country but I don’t think the schedule is helping us display it in the best way. No other country travels like we do, with the volume of cricket we have in the space of time we do.
“I am also one of not that many fast bowlers who play every format throughout the season, so from a selfish point of view I have seen how tough it can be.”
Cook believes that in his time at the top, the Championship has remained as intense as ever, but T20 has risen. Where once there were phases of games players could coast through, rising standards mean that is no longer the case. In addition, broadcast streaming has increased general accountability, and every tournament is a shop window for another. All this means there is no stage of the season that goes quiet for top players.
“It’s just not a conducive schedule from a high-performance point of view for a fast bowler who plays all formats,” he says. “As a bowler, you shouldn’t have to just try to get through games. In terms of strength stuff, you don’t have time to train and improve, or get fitter, because you are trying hard to recover between games.
“As a bowler recovering from a Championship game, realistically you need at least three days to even be semi-recovered if you’ve played a proper four-day game. At the moment, it’s four days on, three days off, and playing seven weeks out of eight. You then have to travel all over the country, which slows everything down. In the Blast, there are often games on successive days with long journeys in between.
“I don’t think you realise when you are in it how physically broken you are. For me, it wasn’t until the end of the season when I had genuinely three weeks off, doing nothing, that I realised quite how broken I was. I then got back into the gym and built my strength back up.
“I think back to my performances in the Hundred and then for Essex in September, I was broken physically. Our S&C coach, when I got into pre-season said I looked about a foot taller running now, just because my back had been so strained in the season. I look at videos of it and think ‘you look f—-d to be honest’.”
Cook believes that there is not some immediate impending exodus of Test match hopefuls to the “lucrative but fickle” franchise scene, but believes more could be done to make the county game attractive to players and fans. For now, though, he is going to get his head down to earn an England place.
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