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In another blast from the past I would like to have a look at Corky’s heroics against the Caribbean team at Lords in 2000. Cork wasn’t consistent as a player but had some great moments in his career like that 7 for 43 on his debut at Lords, the hat-trick and of course his heroics at Lords in 2000. He also did well in NZ in 97 as a batsman.

In 2000 the Caribbean team was a side that had lost its aura as a great team and were losing lots of matches still they were expected to crush the England team as England were in a rebuilding phase. The series started with the Caribbean side under the leadership of Mike’s favourite and the most boring batsman I have seen Adams crushing England by an innings at Edgbaston. Hussain was injured in the match as he was hit on the finger for the umpteenth time probably by Walsh and was ruled out of the second test.

So it looked all doom and gloom for England going into the second test. The selectors surprisingly selected Cork for the second test. At that time Cork was in the wilderness. It did surprise many of the experts and as expected Botham said the selectors are rubbish but in the end it proved to be an inspirational choice.

So with Hussain out it was Stewart who took up the mantle of captaining the side but the situation looked grim when Campbell and Griffith came up with a century partnership. Enter the mercurial Cork who suddenly started to bowl bouncers at Campball. The commentators didn’t like but it worked as Campbell fell into the trap and got out. Cork picked three more wickets as the Caribbean team were all out for 250 odd runs.

England’s batsmen must have been confident of doing well but Walsh and Ambi so many times the nemesis of the England team ripped through England’s batting line up as wickets fell like a pack of cards. England in the end were bowled out for just 130 odd runs.

So with a lead of more then 100 runs the Caribbean team seemed well on their way to a 2-0 lead and many experts even thought a whitewash was on the cards but Caddick came up with an inspirational spell with Gough and Cork supporting him well as the unpredictable Caribbean team were bowled out for just 52!!!

So England were left with a target of 189. It didn’t look good though when Ramps for the second time got out early. The look on Ramps’s face on the Lords balcony said it all. It looked like Ramps would like to be left alone on some Sahara desert rather than be on the Lords balcony with the cameras focusing on him. Anyhow coming back to the match Atherton and Vaughan came up with a partnership of about 100 runs but with England one always expects a collapse and olah didn’t England collapse big time? So from a score of about 90 for 1 England lost 7 wickets for about 60 runs what with still 30 odd runs required for victory. It looked like England would again lose from a position of strength.

The Lords specialist Cork though had other ideas and with his pace bowling partner Gough he came up with a match winning partnership as he turned the game on its head. I still remember the way he smashed Rose for 16 runs in a over to change the course of the game. The 6 he hit of a full length delivery from Rose over the mid wicket region would be etched in my memory forever. Ambi and Walsh tried their best but it was too late as England won by just 2 wickets.

So it was the heroics of the so called show pony which helped England to a memorable victory at Lords. Cork may have been inconsistent but he had the ability to win matches.

To end it was a great test match though it wasn’t easy to watch the final moments of match