Poor and poorer from Dominic Cork

The downside of Dominic Cork retiring is that he'll have more time to spend being a pundit. Take this exchange from yesterday as he commented on the intriguing second Test between South Africa and Australia (paraphrasing):

Cork: (with South Africa now in a good position following an Amla/deVilliers partnership) "Perhaps they can look at bringing Prince to 5 and dropping de Villiers to 6 to get the balance in their batting right"

Ian Ward: "They seem to be doing alright with the order they've got"

Cork: "I just think they may want Prince up one and a stroke player like de Villiers at 6 in England this summer. But then again Prince hasn't been in the runs lately and is under pressure for his place. And the batting order they have now is pretty much perfect."

Thanks Dominic. Another incisive comment.

And then talking through Mitchell Johnson's troubles with the ball he came up with another corker (geddit?). After showing how Johnson is working to get his wrist behind the delivery now, Cork suggested that (again paraphrased) "the in-swinger to the right-hander is the hardest ball for a left-armer like Johnson to bowl and he's showing signs he's rediscovering it".

Really Dominic - the inswinger to the right-hander is the hardest ball to bowl for a left-armer? Not the outswinger to the right-hander that I've only ever seen Wasim Akram bowl consistently well in my lifetime?

I think it's save to assume that Cork's captaincy at Hampshire was built around man-management and motivation rather than tactical nous. How useful for a pro pundit.

Robert Croft as a commentator

Robert Croft seems quality with his Twenty20 commentary...so much of an improvement on the likes of Dominic Cork, Ronnie Irani, Darren Gough etc...

Shut up Dominic Cork

I've had virtually no time to take an interest in the current Bangladesh v England Test match, but I did tune into TMS yesterday morning to see how things were going just before tea. I was free to listen until the end of the day's play, but the period I listened to wasn't exactly pleasurable listening as Dominic Cork's ego took over, so I switched off.

Commentating with Simon Mann he seemed to want to somehow get the better of the senior commentator. He has a right to his opinion and there are many that were arguing like him that England should have enforced the follow on, but he puts his point across like a spoilt teenager arguing with his mother having not been allowed out one evening. Multiply Ian Botham's bleating by 10 and you'll get the idea. And then he started to say that Trott should be dropped - that's when I switched off....

Perhaps CMJ could take him to one side and explain that he is meant to give his opinion, but the days of him having any influence on the decision are over. His role is to give the rationale for his opinion and let the listeners consider it for themselves - not ram his view down the throats of the listeners without giving both sides of the argument. So next time, shut up Dominic.