Allan Massie: Ramprakash is the man to drag England out of mire

Published on Monday 10 August 2009 22:48

MESSRS Miller, Giles, Whittaker and Flower, the English cricket selectors, are likely to have some sleepless nights this week.

Do they write off Headingley as a couple of very bad days at the office and, like a previous chairman of selectors, Ted Dexter, say breezily that the planets were in the wrong place, or do they heed the deluge of conflicting advice which will be pouring on them?

Back in 1956 their predecessors, one-down in an Ashes series, asked one of their members, Cyril Washbrook, to leave the room while they discussed the same question which now faces Miller & Co: how to strengthen the batting? When they called him back they told him he was in the team. Washbrook was then 41, and hadn't played in a Test for five years, having been discarded after an Ashes tour in which he had averaged less than 10. On the first morning he came out to join his captain Peter May with England 17 for 3. They put on around 200, Washbrook made 98 and England went on to win the series.

Ten years later, the selectors responded to an innings defeat by the West Indies at Old Trafford by bringing back Tom Graveney for the Lord's Test on his 39th birthday. He made 96 and two centuries in the next three Tests. Readers will have guessed that I am making the case for the recall of Mark Ramprakash, 40 next month. Like Graveney, he has been discarded often – "no Test match temperament".

Not even his warmest admirers would pretend that his Test record is anything but poor, bitterly disappointing. Yet oddly his record against Australia is not bad, better indeed than that of his contemporaries, Mike Atherton, Alec Stewart and Nasser Hussain, and in his last Test in this country he made 133 against the Aussies at The Oval. In the post-match gloom at Headingley, Ian Botham produced statistics to show that almost all the present England batsmen have worse averages against Australia than against other countries. Ian Bell for instance averages 24 against Australia, 46 against all others. Ramprakash's figures are almost the exact reverse: 42 against Australia, 23 or so against the rest. Odd.

Recalling the best county batsman in England would please romantics like myself. So it probably won't happen. But it's not only romantics who have called for his return. Alec Stewart has also done so. Of course he might fail, but given that England's Nos 3, 4 and 5 batsmen totalled 16 runs between them at Headingley, he couldn't do much worse.

Of course, again, playing Australia is a different proposition from reeling off hundreds in the second division of the championship, but at least we know that if he were to survive the early overs, Ramprakash has the concentration that is required for a batsman to go on and make a big score. And England are going to need a big hundred from somebody at The Oval.

Alternatively, or (better) in addition, the selectors might try to persuade Marcus Trescothick to come back, even if only for this one match. But if he won't and if they don't pick Ramprakash, then who?

Warwickshire's Jonathan Trott was brought into the squad for Leeds on the strength of his form this season, but most of his runs have been made on the flat Edgbaston pitch. I know little else about him, except that a couple of years ago he had, in his own words, "a shocker of a season" in which his average fell below 20. Then there is Kent's Robert Key, whose Test record is not inspiring: 15 Tests, 2002-4, 775 runs, average 31, this boosted by a double hundred against a weak West Indian attack.

Neither looks very convincing, but then nor do Ravi Bopara, Ian Bell and Paul Collingwood.

Perhaps the bravest decision would be to leave things as they are; to say to Bopara, Bell and Collingwood, "Your failure at Headingley has come close to coasting us the Ashes, but we still believe in you. Now go out there and justify our faith."

It would be nice to think they could, but it doesn't look likely. Bopara will make runs for England, but now, at The Oval? There is no current England player I would rather watch than Ian Bell when he is in form and scoring, but he looks shot to pieces. Collingwood is, I suspect, missing Pieterson, many of his best innings having been played in partnership with him. All the same his place is safe.

As for the bowlers, we must hope Jimmy Anderson has recovered from the strain that made him ineffective in this Test. It was his first-innings bowling that set up victory at Lord's and the chance of victory at Edgbaston. It's difficult to see them making any change for The Oval, unless Flintoff is fit to replace Harmison. If Monty Panesar was taking wickets for Northants… but he isn't.

The one good thing to come out of this match was Stuart Broad's all-round performance. His youthful pretty-boy looks may suggest he should still be playing for his school first XI, but over the next few years he is going to be as important to England as Flintoff has been. In any case one must warm to a cricketer who turned down the chance of IPL gold because he wanted to concentrate on establishing himself in the Test side.

Prospects for The Oval look bleak, and will look bleaker if Flintoff is unfit again. But one good session could see the balance shift and the result of cricket matches may even turn on a single moment.

After all, England wouldn't have won the Ashes in 2005 if Shane Warne of all people hadn't dropped a straightforward slip catch off Kevin Pieterson on the last morning of the series.

A final note. Many are blaming the ECB for allowing Pieterson and Flintoff, both carrying injuries, to go and play in the IPL. Well, in retrospect, it looks an awful mistake to have made. But would they have been happy members of the England team if forbidden to collect piles of Indian loot? I wonder.

ASHES ODDS

MARK Ramprakash is 7-2 to play in the fifth and final Test match of the Ashes series on his home ground at The Oval. The Surrey veteran, who has not represented his country since 2002, scored the 108th first class century of his career at the weekend.

But Ladbrokes reckon Kent's Rob Key is marginally more likely to catch the selector's eye and have him priced at 2-1.

England are 7-2 to win at the Oval and regain the urn but 8-1 to lose by an innings once more.

LATEST ODDS

To play in the Fifth Test at the Oval?: 7-2 Ramprakash; 8-13 Bopara; 2-1 Key; 11-10 Lee; 1-9 Flintoff

Match result: 7-2 England; 11-8 Draw; 6-5 Australia

Top series runscorer: 1-5 Clarke; 7-1 Strauss; 8-1 North; 16-1 Ponting; 100-1 Haddin, Katich.