From Grace Road to Glory: Nick Cook | Rescued from the Fast Lane

By Tim Murray

Nick Cook is eternally grateful to one of cricket's most famous umpires for rescuing him at Chesterfield.

The England left-arm spinner was playing a Championship game for Northants in the Park in I990. "We had injury after injury after injury - so much so that I was batting No.8 in the second innings," he said. "Ian Bishop was bowling on a very fast wicket and he was peppering me with short balls.

"The umpire was one Harold Dennis Bird. He intervened and said: 'You'll have to space out these short balls because I don't think this batsman can defend himself'. That was sweet music to my ears. I think 'Dickie' saved me from having my block knocked off on a quick Chesterfield pitch."

Cook had a much more pleasant introduction to the ground. Leicestershire clinched the County Championship for the first time in 1975 when they beat Derbyshire in the Park in the final game of the season.

"I'd finished school and was on the summer staff at Grace Road," he said. "I went up for the game with Kevin Hill, the assistant secretary. After Leicestershire won the title, they brought out a brochure and on the front cover there was a colour photograph of the game with Roger Tolchard behind the stumps, three or four slips and a gully and elongated shadows stretching across the ground."

Cook, a keen football follower, retired from playing in 1994 and joined the first-class umpires' panel in 2009. That August he stood in the game between Derbyshire and Northants and, on the first evening, Chesterfield were at home against Notts County.

Cook said: "The Chesterfield chairman Mike Taylor got us tickets for the game and I can remember Sven-Goran Eriksson, who had just become director of football at Notts County, sitting in the stand." Chesterfield won the Division Two match 2-1 thanks to two Jamie Lowry penalties.

Cook was back in the Park seven years later for a NatWest T20 Blast game against Northants with Neil Mallender as his fellow umpire. There had been heavy rain and Cook said: "Mallers had given me a heads-up that we might not play, so I got there early.
"It was really wet at the Lake End and I said: 'Don't let people in because I think we might not play'. But, when we got to starting time, there were about 2,000 in the ground. It was a tricky situation." Unfortunately the match was abandoned and the same fate befell the Championship game between the same two sides over the following four days.

Despite that setback, Cook - the 2022 Professional Cricketers Association Umpire of the Year - is an advocate of outground cricket. "I like going to Chesterfield, I like going to Cheltenham," he said. "It's a bit different.

"I think that some of the players of today, unless they have big dressing rooms and everything on tap, they tend to knock the idea. But, provided the surfaces are good enough. I think outgrounds have got a big part to play."