Cork back to fitness and ready to rumble

Dominic Cork has been cleared to make his Lancashire debut on the pre-season trip to South Africa. The county leave for the Cape next week.Cork, who finally quit Derbyshire at the end of last summer, underwent surgery on a troublesome ankle in the close season and Mike Watkinson, Lancashire’s coach, said that he was now back to full fitness.”To be honest, we’ve been having to hold him back for a few weeks now,” Watkinson told the Manchester Evening News. “He had some sort of fracture in his ankle last year with Derbyshire and because it was still causing him a few problems when he joined us, he had a minor operation to clear it up. He had his final check with his specialist and got the okay. So now it’s just a question of getting him up to full speed as gradually as we can.”Lancashire have scaled down the number of matches on the trip. They will play three one-dayers, two Twenty20-format games, and a two-dayer against a Western Province XI.