The trials and tribulations of Mark Ramprakash's career

Suddenly from nowhere, Ramprakash was selected to play for England to bolster an injury-hit English set-up in Australia. Critics weren’t sure about Ramprakash’s inclusion, as from playing on the slow and low wickets of India; he had to acclimatise to playing on a trampoline wicket at WACA. Ramprakash gave a fitting riposte to his critics by doing well at WACA.

Australia won the Test at WACA by a whopping margin of 329 runs, but not before the southpaw Graham Thorpe and Ramprakash put on a glorious exhibition of batsmanship. Thorpe came into bat at 5/2 in the first innings of the Test. But after surviving a searching examination of his technique by Glenn McGrath, he met fire with fire. When Thorpe pulled and cut Jo Angel and McGrath, the ball virtually crashed into the boundary boards at the speed of lightning.

Mark Ramprakash bats at WACA

At the other end of the spectrum, Ramprakash showed his versatility by making a well-measured knock of 72. In the second innings, he saved England from embarrassment with a tenacious innings of 42. Ramprakash’s judgment of what to play and what to leave against Australian seamers was close to ideal in that Test match.

After Ramprakash played those back-to-the-wall knocks at WACA, there was an inkling that the WACA Test could be the watershed moment in his career, but it wasn’t to be. Ramprakash’s cricketing career was back to square one after English selectors dropped him for the third Test against West Indies at Edgbaston in 1995.

The ‘revolving-door policy’ of England’s selectors continued to be the bane of English cricket with Mark Ramprakash being selected to tour the Rainbow nation in 1995-1996.

In South Africa, England’s think-tank made the same mistake that they had done previously in the Caribbean by slotting Ramprakash at number three position in the batting order. No wonder, Ramprakash flopped miserably during that tour and was eventually dropped from the team.

False dawn of Mark Ramprakash’s Test career

By 1997, Ramprakash seemed to be a forgotten man of English cricket. Just in the nick of time though, he was handed a lifeline by selectors, as he was picked to play against Australia in the final Test at Oval.

By then, it had become customary for Ramprakash to play in an Ashes dead rubber. On what turned out to be a spinner’s paradise, Ramprakash showed that runs could be eked out on a treacherous track by scoring 48 runs in the second innings.

By the time England toured the Caribbean in 1997-98, question marks were being raised over whether Ramprakash would even score a single hundred in his Test career. When ‘Ramps’ got the chance to play in the fifth Test at Barbados, he was able to take the monkey off his back of not having scored a century with a soul-lifting masterpiece knock.

Mark Ramprakash celebrates his maiden Test century

At Barbados, for once in his Test career, Ramprakash reigned supreme. His marathon ultra patient vigil at the crease that lasted almost nine hours would be fondly remembered by aficionados for his great prowess of adhesion. For a youngster, watching Ramprakash bat was akin to a coaching stint in the art of leaving the ball outside the off-stump.

With Ramprakash getting a good run in the side, he started to make his presence felt at the Test level. In the 19 Tests he played from 1997 to 1999, starting with the Oval Test match against Australia in 1997, to the Oval test against New Zealand in 1999, Ramprakash averaged 40.27 and aggregated 1168 runs.

Unfortunately for Ramprakash, it turned out to be a false dawn in his Test career. In 1999, in the Test series played against New Zealand at home, he failed to deliver the goods and was soon dropped.

It has to be said that Ramprakash looked completely out of sorts in the Test series he played against the plucky Kiwis. It started with him making a duck for which he took 27 balls in the first Test at Edgbaston.

The nadir of that series for Ramprakash was when he made a painstaking 24 in the second Test at Lord’s and couldn’t even find gaps while playing against the friendly slow medium-pace of Nathan Astle. He seemed to be a cricketer full of jittery nerves and thoughts.