Dominic not demonic

Cork: pussycat

Everybody expects me to be this aggressive guy walking down the street with the zinc cream on. Or staring at the lady in the supermarket serving me my boiled ham, telling her it's just not good enough!

Dominic Cork
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Dominic Cork has been called many things in his time... but a pussycat?

The Lancashire veteran kicked off the new series of Cricket AM, by revealing a side that we never see.

Everyone knows the snarling, growling competitor, giving batsmen both barrels, but Cork would have us believe he was bullied by his two big brothers growing up - and as a result, is actually laid-back and mellow away from the middle.

"Everybody expects me to be this aggressive guy walking down the street with the zinc cream on," he told Cricket AM.

"Or staring at the lady in the supermarket serving me my boiled ham, telling her it's just not good enough!

"It's just the way I am on the pitch. Off it I'm a bit of a pussycat and I keep myself to myself.

"On the pitch though I just want to win - and whoever gets in my way, I don't care what I say or what I do, I just want them out of my way.

"It's part and parcel of my make-up and that's the way I go about playing my cricket. If it does rub people up the wrong way, it's up to them."

But, it seems, Cork's on-field aggression has backfired.

He is currently sidelined with a back problem picked up in pre-season and he admits, only has himself to blame.

"We were on our pre-season tour in March - which seems so long ago - and this opening batsman from the UAE hit me over mid-off for six - and the steam started coming out of the ears," he said.

"So next ball, I went for the bouncer. At 36. And it just went!

"I had an injection on Tuesday and hopefully I will be back playing in the Roses game ay Yorkshire on Friday."

Quite posh

Last season Cork was a regular on Cricket AM with Champagne Corks, a weekly look at the high points from the last seven days of domestic and international cricket.

But this is likely to be his only appearance on the show as he has stood down, soon to be replaced by the one and only Bob Willis in Bobby's Dazzlers.

So what curtailed Cork's TV career?

"It was the accent," he said. "It's embarrassing, coming from Stoke trying to speak with an accent that's quite posh. I just can't put it on anymore - I get so much gip around the country.

"I always get it at Warwickshire, Edgbaston. I don't know why Birmingham fans get on my back, but the do - all the time! It's terrible."