Ramps Recall Would Play into Aussie Hands

Mark Ramprakash. Love the guy. One of my all-time heroes. A player gifted with all the attributes of the very finest batsmen: technique, flair and the ability to stay entirely focussed on the task in hand for hours on end. Still a joy to watch, and still, one month shy of his 40th birthday, the most prolific run-scorer in the land.

Time for an England recall? Give me a break.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about Ramprakash’s Test career is that it lasted as long as it did: 52 matches over an 11-year period and a batting average of 27. In 92 visits to the crease he only passed 50 on 14 occasions and only twice did he reach three figures.

And yet despite all this evidence, England selectors are being urged to put their faith in Ramprakash for one of the biggest Tests in the side’s history. Seven years after his last Test Ramps is being tipped as the man to win back the Ashes at his home ground.

Honestly, I can’t think of a more ridiculous idea. Yes, Ramps probably couldn’t do any worse than Mssrs Bopara and Bell did at Headingley. Yes, he’s in fantastic form in county cricket. But what kind of a message does it send out to the Australians if the selectors resort to such a desperate punt?

In what surely ranks as the longest trial in Test history, Ramprakash was found to be totally lacking in that crucial something that turns a promising domestic player into a successful Test cricketer.

When Ramprakash came out to bat in a Test match, something very strange happened. He regularly made it to 20 or 25 in a fairly unflustered manner before undergoing a crisis of confidence that would almost invariably lead to his premature dismissal. I remember him cleverly working his way to 48 untroubled runs in the heat of an Ashes battle in 1997, before inexplicably charging down the wicket to Shane Warne and getting stumped.

Ramprakash’s failure was very much a mental one. He clearly struggled to clear his head of the pressures created by representing one’s country and developed a mindset that wrought havoc with his batting technique.

Just like his peer and fellow England failure Graeme Hick, Ramprakash always seemed burdened by the demands of representing England. And there won’t be a more pressurised situation that the fifth Ashes Test at the Oval.

Can you imagine the various sledges coming from the Aussie slip cordon when Ramps takes guard? It would be enough to unsettle even the most confident of Test players, let alone a man whose psychological frailties were so consistently exposed on the sport’s greatest stage. There is simply too much at stake to gamble on a man who was found wanting on so many occasions over an 11-year period. And the consequences of Ramprakash’s failure could be detrimental to the entire team.

So if not Ramps, who do they pick? I’d say Jonathan Trott has to play. He’s in great nick, has a winning mentality, an absence of scars from Ashes past and a better South African accent than Kevin Pietersen.

I don’t buy the argument that this is no time for a new boy. England have tried putting their faith in experienced campaigners in the forms of Harmison and Bell, and both were woeful at Headingley.

What’s more, England batsmen tend to do rather well on their debuts. Andrew Strauss, Alastair Cook and Matt Prior made hundreds, while Bell and Pietersen both struck confident fifties.

So Trott for Bopara and hopefully Flintoff for Harmison. My only other change would be to shake up the batting order. I’d go for Collingwood at three, on the grounds that he thrives in adversity and knows how to take responsibility when England need it most. Bell can stay at four with Trott at five and Prior at six. With Flintoff, Broad, Swann and even Anderson all in form, the batting order has depth, even if it lacks star quality.

England were awful at Headlingley but don’t write them off just yet. In 2005, they bounced back from a miserable batting performance at Lord’s to score 400 in a day at Edgbaston. And in this series, the near-humiliation of Cardiff was followed by a resounding victory at the home of cricket.

Taking the series as a whole, the sides look very evenly-matched. Roll on the Oval.