by Arunabha Sengupta

April 1989. Taunton.
The first net of the season. The usual showers had left hailstones on the artificial surface and the ball moved, making the new overseas recruit play and miss a few.
The members scattered around the stands to check out this unknown player began to mutter. Somehow Brian Rose, the Somerset captain, had seen a video of him batting and had recommended him to the committee. It had been accepted. But not many knew of him. Least of all the immigration officer at Heathrow, peering suspiciously at his South African passport. The cricketer had been kept at the airport for a few hours while his claims of playing for Somerset was checked out.
Now not too many were convinced that it had been worth the trouble. After all, this man, whoever he was, was on the verge of turning 36.

But then there were some crisply struck shots on either side square of the wicket. Roy Marshall, the Hampshire pro, declared that this man could bat.
And soon, a lot of members were startled by this moustached man shaking their hands and talking to them. By the end of the day, the fellow was busy playing cricket in the outfield with his two young sons.

By the end of May that season, Jimmy Cook had scored 156 against Lancashire and 147 not out against Essex. That summer he scored 2241 runs for Somerset at 60.56.
When he returned the following summer, Cook started with 313 not out against Glamorgan. 2608 runs in 1990 at 76.70.
The following year, his last for Somerset in 1992, he did even better. 2755 runs at 81.02. That included 162 not out against the visiting West Indians spearheaded by Ambrose and Marshall and 209 not out against the visiting Sri Lankans.

He winded up his Somerset days with 127 and 40 against Warwickshire, against an attack led by Allan Donald. Scores of people lined up crocodile-style during the intervals for Jimmy Cook to shake their hands and sign their books.
He had become a legend for the county. There was reason for that. 7604 runs in 71 games at 72.41 with 28 hundreds.

Not that Cook had not scored runs before the afternoon light of his career dazzled the English county grounds.
He was an integral part of the Transvaal mean machine, scoring almost 11000 runs for them with 29 hundreds.
And when the Rebel Tests kicked off, he creamed 114 against Graham Gooch’s men, 169 and 112 against the Arosa Sri Lankans . He played all the 19 Rebel Tests, scoring 1320 runs at 42.58. Only Graeme Pollock scored more.

But, Cook was 39 by the time he could play Test matches. He played just three of them, and his major claim to fame in the highest form of the game remains getting out first ball of the first Test played in South Africa since the isolation.

Yet, he was a magnificent sportsman.
A mild mannered school-teacher, always eager to be with kids and family, the pleasant amiability hid the steel in his make up. A attacking forward in his Witwatersrand University soccer days, he could have played football for South Africa if there had been no sporting isolation. A magnificent fielder as well. And he was a sportsman. Never was there any record of a harsh word, never a sledge.
But he could take on the meanest, toughest of bowlers.

21,143 runs in first-class cricket, at 50.08 with 64 hundreds.

Jimmy Cook was born on 31 July 1953.