Ramps continues to make hay

How quickly things go out of date. A few days ago I wrote this piece about Ramprakash being on 97 first-class hundreds as the season began. Well, we're one day into the new season and he is now on 98, having made 102 at the Oval today. Chances are probably quite high that he'll be on 99 by the end of the week.

Ramprakash's renaissance in the past couple of years has been astounding. To recap the basic facts for overseas readers and England selectors: since the start of the 2003 season he has scored 8,892 first-class runs, made 38 hundreds and averaged just under 85 runs per innings. In the 2006 and 2007 seasons he scored more than 2,000 runs and averaged more than 100 each time. His failings at the highest level are well known, but he has looked a different man since being dropped in 2002. If he doesn't get an England recall this summer, you have to wonder what else he could have done.

Comments

[Johnmc]

I think Baz has hit the nail on the head - why have selectors at all. Come the first Test in May, just select the five/six top English qualified batsmen in the averages and the four/five top bowlers (might have to look a long way down) and then Chris Read because everyone knows he's the best (yawn).

[Peter McGuinness]

From an outsider's perspective, it is quite humorous that Ramps and Chris Read continue to be exiled. Not for the poor buggers themselves of course.

Clearly, it is not about purely cricketing matters. Which gives we Aussies great heart that things have not really changed too much in the Machiavellian morass of English cricket's corridors of power.

Not selecting players who are quite obviously England's best option is an arcane art-form in the Old Dart. Believe it or not, the amusement is tempered by disappointment, because I would still prefer to watch England's best players contest the Ashes. It nearly bloody killed us to wait two Tests for Monty last time down here, for example.

Odd.

But consistent.

At least the inexplicably banished can go make a mint in the Indian hit and giggle. Oh...that's right. They can't. Sorry.

[Aamir A]

It's simple, he can do no more, but unfortunately his age is against him. As much as I would love to see him don the three lions once more, it would be a backwards step. The current England selectors, despite showing some good selection decisions (recalling Sidebottom, dropping Harmison & Hoggard for the 2nd Test vs NZ) have failed with other decisions (not giving Shah an opportunity). My heart says recall Ramps this summer, my head says give a younger guy a chance.

[baz]

Excuse me but I thought international sport was all about picking players in form for their club sides - not judging players on what they did 7 years ago? Let's get back to selecting cricketers for England on what they did in their last match, not on what they might do if you keep selecting them long enough! Ramps is a product of the Fletcher years, just like Ryan Sidebottom. Ryan was given another chance and grabbed it with both hands. Any other Fletcher discards out there? Lets face it, the current lot need a good kick, and dropping those who are out of form in favour of those who are in form would be a good start.

[johnmc]

What more could he do? He could have performed when the pressure was on - during his 52 Test match career for instance. He could have produced that form under pressure in the county championship rather than in a side that walked the second division and did little to suggest they would be championship challengers in Division 1 the following year. He could have produced the best form of his career before it was clear that his England career was over and that ballroom dancing offered a better path to fame. Or he could have buckled down when times were tough and, say, ignored having to be twelfth man for six Tests in the winter that he really should have played in and got a century in an unglamorous game in Leicestershire and surely cemented a place in the side against New Zealand next month