Enigmatic artist Ramprakash is improving with age like a fine wine

Published on Friday 18 April 2008 22:53

MARK Ramprakash ended last season by hitting five centuries in six matches. He began this one on Wednesday with another, the 98th of his first-class career. Sometime within the next week he will score his 100th, and join one of cricket's most select clubs, the batsmen who have made a century of centuries. There are only 24 of them. The first was WG Grace. Ramprakash may well be the last name on that list.

Certainly with the reduction in the number of first-class matches now played, it will be very difficult for anyone to reach this target again. Eighteen of Ramprakash's hundreds have come in the last two English seasons. In his ratio of centuries to innings, Ramprakash's recent record has been 'Bradmanesque'.

For many he remains an enigma: a master batsman whose Test record bears no relation to his ability. He has played 52 times for England and has made only two Test hundreds. His Test match average is only 27. Yet Alec Stewart, England's most-capped cricketer, has called him technically the best batsman he has played with.

Like all the great batsmen, his game is based on a secure defence, on judgement of length and line, on quick precise foot movement. He has all the classical strokes, including the delicate late-cut (though he will also in the modern fashion employ the high-flying slash over the slips). He plays some of them as well as anyone in the history of the game: the front-foot cover-drive, the forcing back-stroke on the offside, and the wristy flick off his legs, through mid-wicket or behind square. His concentration has improved with the years, and nowadays when he has passed, say, 25, he is more likely than not to score a hundred.

It was temperament, not technique, that let him down in Test matches. As a young player, he was over-intense, unable to relax at the wicket, and often succumbed to nerves. There is, however, one curious thing about Ramprakash's Test career. His record against Australia is much better than his overall Test one. He averages more than 40 against the dominant Test side of his time. Of his contemporaries, only Graham Thorpe's record in Ashes Test is better: those of Michael Atherton, Stewart and Nasser Hussain are all inferior.

Neville Cardus used to divide batsmen into artists and artisans, and Ramprakash belongs in the first category. It's perhaps unfair that in all sports there are some players who offer aesthetic pleasure to the spectator, and some who don't. But that's how it is and Ramprakash is in the top flight of artist-batsmen. Cardus had another test.

If you were in London and heard that 'X' was 20 not out at lunch, would you get into a taxi and head for Lord's or The Oval? It's a test Ramprakash passes, more certainly than any other English batsmen today.

Perhaps only Kevin Pietersen – a very different sort of player – and Ian Bell are the others to do so.

It's probable that his Test career is over. He is 38 now, and, though like a good claret he has matured and improved with the years, it doesn't seem likely that in these days of central contracts, the selectors will turn to him again. But his admirers may still nurse a fantasy. Next summer England's batting fails in the first two Tests against Australia. Meanwhile, Ramprakash is batting as felicitously as ever for Surrey. The clamour for his return becomes irresistible. He is recalled and obliges with a century, which turns the series in England's favour.

Fantasy? Perhaps. But there are precedents. In 1956, with England one down, Cyril Washbrook, out of test cricket for five years, was recalled at the age of 41. He came to the wicket with England 17 for 3, and made 98.

Or there is the case of Tom Graveney, discarded like Ramprakash as an under-achiever. He returned against the West Indies at Lord's in 1966, just in time for his 39th birthday. In this second flowering, he went on to score five of his 11 Test hundreds.

Some batsmen, like wines, do improve with age. The head of the centurion's club, Jack Hobbs, hit 98 of his 197 hundreds after his 40th birthday.

One way or another, Ramprakash may delight us for a few seasons yet.