Stephen Cook’s clinical dismantling of the Cape Cobras bowling attack at the Wanderers on Saturday night was the culmination of hard work undertaken a few years back to become a more attacking player.
It involved seeking out T20 matches wherever he could to help him identify different scoring options and engage his mind to force him to become more attacking.
That’s not to say Cook’s unbeaten 127 was a swashbuckling all out assault, just that when he needed to find the boundary he was able to and when he wanted to go after one of the Cobras’ lesser bowlers he had the shots to apply pressure on them.
“A couple of years ago I’d been pigeon-holed as a four-day player and I went away to play T20 cricket just to get myself some more boundary options. It’s not only something that’s helped my one-day cricket, but in the four-day format too, because I’m not just batting at one pace,” the Highveld Lions skipper said yesterday.
It was a career best effort in one-day cricket for Cook and came off 131 balls, included a six – which took him to the hundred mark – and 10 fours. Alongside Alviro Petersen – who made a run-a-ball century too – Cook shared a stand of 213 runs for the second wicket as the Lions ultimately strolled to victory by eight wickets with 34 balls to spare in their opening Momentum One-Day Cup match.
The Lions will be heavily reliant on Cook, Petersen and Neil McKenzie for the bulk of their runs in the competition, but while Saturday’s win was comfortably achieved, Cook doesn’t want it to be seen as a blueprint for how the Lions will bat in the tournament.
“I’m very cautious about saying that, because when you go ‘that’s the blueprint’, it makes you sound one-dimensional. I think we are better than that as a batting team,” said Cook.
“If we had to chase 330 on Saturday I would like to think we could have done that. We have the personnel, Alviro might have gone harder earlier. I don’t want us to get stuck into batting in one particular way, I think we are more flexible than that.”
Cook felt the Cobras total of 270/5 was “par,” on what was a typically good limited overs pitch at the Wanderers.
“I felt we just needed a steady start. Vernon Philander is always a threat with the new ball but I felt if we could see him off, then the other parts of their attack were not as experienced and we could cash in.”
If there was one area which the Lions felt they performed poorly, it was at the ‘death’ when they allowed the Cobras to score 63 runs in the last five overs.
“We knew we could have done better. I don’t think it was about the plans, just the execution,’ said Cook.
“Hardus (Viljoen) and Lopsy (Lonwabo Tsotsobe) have done that job a lot of times over the years, for us and at SA A level. You know doing it training and then doing it under pressure in a match are two very different things. I expect them to work hard on it in practice this week and to come back better in the next match.”
That next match is against the KZN Dolphins at Kings-mead on Friday. - The Star