English cricket's great lost talent - Reprise

Of batsmen who have scored at least 20,000 county championship runs, who do you think has the highest average? Most sages would opt for Wally Hammond, Len Hutton, Jack Hobbs, Herbert Sutcliffe or even Graham Gooch or Geoff Boycott. All of these except Hutton managed 20,000 runs; World War II prevented the great Yorkshire and England batsman from reaching this landmark - his final tally being 19,361 at 52.04.

None of these answers would be correct as the batsman that holds this lofty honour is none other than Mark Ramprakash, who as of yesterday has scored 27,987 championship runs at 60.32. The next best is Boycott (58.27), with C.B.Fry (56.77), Hammond (56.67) and Graeme Hick (54.19) making up the rest of the top five. Indeed, Ramprakash is only behind the great KS Ranjitsinhji (16,194 runs at 62.04), of batsmen with over 10,000 championship runs.

It was perhaps entirely appropriate therefore that in the week following England's World T20 triumph, Ramprakash again showed what might have been as he served his revenge cold to his former county Middlesex with scores of 223 and 103 not out in their Division 2 match at the Oval. The most talented English batsman of his generation was again reminding everyone that Kevin Pietersen may be good, but in terms of pure batsmanship he is better.

Ramprakash is like a bottle of excellent Chateau Lafitte in the way he has got better and better with age. He is now 40, but shows no sign of letting up the flow of runs and one wonders if he could have emulated Gooch in being one of the best test batsmen in the World despite being on the wrong side of 40. That of course is the great paradox with Ramprakash. Yes, he was messed about badly by the selectors and no doubt he would have done better under the central contract system and if more faith had been shown, but a return of two hundreds from 52 tests at an average of 27.32 doesn't even go close to justifying his immense talent.

He last played for England in the Auckland test of 2002, when he was 32 years old. Since then he has been unstoppable in county cricket and from the 2003 season onwards has never averaged less than 60 each season. Indeed, in 2006 and 2007 he averaged over 100, which is an extraordinary feat. Surrey have certainly seen the best of him. Since joining the county in 2001, Ramprakash averages 75.76 in the championship with 58 hundreds from 131 matches; a quite staggering performance.

One wonders if he could have replicated this for England these past eight years. His backers will say that as Ramprakash has got older, he has relaxed and allowed his true talent to flourish and this means he would have overcome the nerves that got the better of him when he stepped onto the big stage. His doubters will counter by saying that tension would have continued to grip him in an England shirt and that he would have never fully justified his talent. We will never know, but we believe that just as with vintage wine, if England had given Ramprakash more time they could have finally uncorked the full flavour of his abilities and had its own Ponting, Lara or Tendulkar. Maybe Ramprakash will just have to settle for that in his next life.

Wikio 

 

Comments

[greyblazer]

Selectors kept picking him against the Caribbean team and as soon as he would fail they would drop him. If not against the Caribbean team they would pick him against Donald and co. and again drop him!

If a young player is picked against good teams they can't be dropped after a few failures and that was perhaps the main reason why he failed. In that regard he can be compared to Sinclair of NZ as he too was messed up by the selectors.

He must be feeling frustrated when he looks at the fact even players like Colly have succeeded in test cricket!

[The Reverse Sweep]

Ramps was poorly treated by the selectors as was Hick. Both would have florished under the current system.

[Shaun Custers]

I remember him playing against South Africa a few years back... didn't know he was still at it in the county championship

[The Reverse Sweep]

Yes Ramps is the grand old man of English cricket!

[Wes@PlayForCountryNotForSelf]

He's doing a really great job for Surrey, sometimes his team mates must feel outright guilty. It hurts, though, if you support Middlesex *sigh*

Cheers,
Wes

[The Reverse Sweep]

Incredible isnt it? Yesterday was Surreys first win in 17 championship matches!

[Gina]

Just look at Ramps first introduction to test cricket when England played a great West Indian team, and beat them. (scorecards can be found at cricinfo) His average was head and shoulders above both Atherton and Hick-and he was younger than both of them - but he was dropped for the next series.
Why? Weren't the selectors sending the message that however well he played his place in the team would never be safe?

[The Reverse Sweep]

Spot on Gina. Alas the selectors messaed around Ramps from day one. I suppose then it is hardly surprising that he allowed nerves to get the better of him for the majority of his England career.