Robert Cooke (25 May 1900 – 14 January 1957) was an English first-class

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er who played in 15 matches for

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon an ...

from 1925 to 1926. Born in

Selly Oak Selly Oak is an industrial and residential area in south-west Birmingham, England. The area gives its name to Selly Oak ward and includes the neighbourhoods of: Bournbrook, Selly Park, and Ten Acres. The adjoining wards of Edgbaston and Harborne ...

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

, Cooke was a right-arm fast-medium bowler and a right-handed tail-end batsman. In his second first-class match, the game against

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

at the

Nevill Ground The Nevill Ground is a cricket ground at Royal Tunbridge Wells in the English county of Kent. It is owned by Tunbridge Wells Borough Council and is used by Tunbridge Wells Cricket Club in the summer months and by Tunbridge Wells Hockey Club in t ...

Tunbridge Wells Royal Tunbridge Wells is a town in Kent, England, southeast of central London. It lies close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the Weald, High Weald, whose sandstone geology is exemplified by the rock formation High Roc ...

, in July 1925, he finished off the Kent first innings with a

hat-trick A hat-trick or hat trick is the achievement of a generally positive feat three times in a match, or another achievement based on the number three. Origin The term first appeared in 1858 in cricket, to describe H. H. Stephenson taking three wic ...

of three wickets in three balls, in fact taking four wickets in five balls; later in the same match, he was himself part of a hat-trick taken by the Kent bowler

Charlie Wright Charles George Wright (born 11 December 1938) is a former professional footballer and manager. Born in Scotland. He gained the name "wonder boy" after a great trial game for Morton against Queens Park (B Division 1955/56). He continued with his ...

which finished off the Warwickshire second innings. Cooke's figures of five wickets for 22 runs in Kent's first innings were by some distance the best of his career, and in no other innings in a brief first-class career did he take more than two wickets. Cooke died at age 56 on 14 January 1957 in Bournbrook, Birmingham.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cooke, Robert 1900 births 1957 deaths English cricketers Warwickshire cricketers Cricketers from Birmingham, West Midlands