Stars set to be without Cook for a month

King’s Lynn are facing up to at least a month without Ben Cook following his crash in their Premiership win over Leicester on Monday.The Australian has had a tough start to his time with the Stars, but ironically, he looked to be in his best form of the season before the accident.A spark plug failure denied him a likely win in Heat 1, and after he had combined with skipper Nicolai Klindt for a 5-1 in Heat 6, they were on course for another in Heat 10 until Cook lost control on the fourth bend and crashed heavily.The damage has since been confirmed as a broken radius and scaphoid, and he has now flown to Poland for specialist attention.One saving grace for Lynn is that they now head into a relatively quiet period fixture-wise, and they are understood to have already booked a guest for Cook in their next league match at home to Oxford on April 28.Then when they travel to Ipswich on May 5, new averages will be in force, which looks set to see Klindt at reserve and will require further assessment of the best way to cover for Cook.After his blistering start to the season, Chris Harris is set to swap the reserve berth for the No.1 spot in May, but the move may end up giving Stars a better overall balance and Klindt can certainly be expected to score heavily at No.6. Meanwhile, Young Stars manager Jason Pipe heaped praise on his charges after they won their opening meeting at Birmingham. 15-year-old Cooper Rushen and fellow teenagers Jody Scott and Luke Harrison played starring roles in the 48-41 win in the National Development Trophy, with the return to come at the Adrian Flux Arena on April 30.Pipe said: “I was actually a bit nervous beforehand because it was the first time I’d managed at this level for around seven years.“But the lads all dug in, they knew it was going to be a hard one and it was tough at the beginning – but it turned out well in the end, and we ground a result out “I actually felt I made a mistake by wanting us to take the inside gates, which were quite wet at the start, so I held my hands up on that and we still got the win.“There were some really good performances, the riders had to ride to order at times to get what we wanted, and the less experienced lads like Calum (Mitchell) and Harrison (Rogers) will also have taken a lot from it.“Hopefully that result will show the fans what a good team this is, and hopefully they will turn out and support us a week on Wednesday because the lads are already buzzing for that meeting.”