The trials and tribulations of Mark Ramprakash's career

Mark Ramprakash’s athletic fielding

Mark Ramprakash was an athletic fielder

Mark Ramprakash was also a brilliant fielder. He seemed to be at ease with any fielding position that was allocated to him by the captain on a cricket field. Some of the jaw-dropping catches he took in his career will be etched in one’s memory forever.

A few instances of Ramprakash’s tigerish-like fielding are still fresh in fans’ memories – in his debut Test, with Ramprakash fielding at point, he made a full length dive to pluck a catch out of thin air to send Phil Simmons packing back to the pavilion.

In 1998, Ramprakash pulled off a stunning catch that helped England to dismiss the rock-solid Jacques Kallis at Headingley. Kallis played a scorching pull shot, only for Ramprakash to take a one-handed catch at mid-wicket.

In 1998-1999 at MCG, Australia was cruising to a victory. But Ramprakash turned the match on its head when with a superman-like leap; he caught Langer’s attempted pull shot of Alan Mullaly’s bowling at square-leg.

Life outside cricket

Mark Ramprakash

Other than cricket, Ramprakash has excelled in the glamour and glitzy world too. He and his partner, Karen Hardy, won BBC’s popular Strictly Come Dancing competition in 2006. He was also a talented footballer in his younger days, but gave up on football, as he wanted to seriously concentrate on taking up cricket professionally.

In recent times, he has had his fair share of problems in his personal life. Finally, Ramprakash and his lovely wife, Vandana Ramprakash, ended their marriage of 17 years with a divorce in 2010.

Here was a cricketer who was bestowed with a generous portion of god-gifted talent. Unfortunately, due to a variety of reasons, he couldn’t carve a niche for himself in the international arena. But that shouldn’t take anything away from his wondrous achievements in first class cricket.

Mark Ramprakash’s batting was more than just the 35,659 runs he amassed and 114 centuries he made in first class cricket. In short, just like a masterful painter, from his watertight defence to exquisite, precise metre of timing, everything seemed to be perfectly aligned.

Alas! The supreme willowy-wielder’s prestidigitation was largely restricted to the confines of first class cricket.