Before reviewing the career of Mark Ramprakash, who has just retired from cricket, I shall provide my answer to the question posed in the title: a resounding success!
Anyone who can reflect on a career in the sport having scored more than 50,000 senior runs, including almost 36,000 in the first-class game, is entitled to feel exceedingly proud.
Of course, he has often been bracketed with Graeme Hck and John Crawley as prolific county batsmen who didn't carry that through to international level. In that respect, the statistics don't lie. To average a mere 27.52 in 52 Tests, featuring only two centuries, does smack of underachievement considering Ramps scored a further 112 in other first-class fixtures, averaging more than 53 overall. In comparison Sachin Tendulkar has 78 first-class hundreds to his name. The likes of Michael Vaughan, David Lloyd and others have written excellent reviews of the Bushey boy's career, recognising his considerable talent and technique, which should have made him an England legend, prompting gasps of admiration instead of wincing and a frustrated shrug of the shoulders. As former top cricketers, they are in a far better position than I am to pass judgement on Ramprakash's temperament and how mental strength can affect some players when they step up to the very highest level.
The point has been made that he was never given enough of a run in the England side to establish himself because the team in the 1990s was generally mediocre and selectors were too quick to discard and try someone different. Ramprakash rarely got a full series under his belt and he was often played in the awkward number six slot which probably didn't help him either. One hypothesis is that he could never relax and play his natural game because of a perceived need to take metaphorical nervous looks over his shoulder for fear of failure.
His 52 caps were distributed across eleven years, 1991 to 2002, so the opportunities were there but he became familiar with the 'revolving door' policy in that period. 1998 to 1999 was the time when he was indeed allowed a reasonable go, playing eighteen matches in as many months with mixed results. He made his highest score of 154 against Walsh, Ambrose and Bishop in the Caribbean and was pretty consistent on the Ashes tour of 1997-8, averaging more than 47. Indeed, he was more successful against the Aussies than any other nation, McGrath and Warne notwithstanding. Strangely it was versus the likes of Pakistan, South Africa and New Zealand where he was prone to flop. In the same period, he also managed only 18 ODI appearances, scoring a paltry 376 runs.
Encouragingly he didn't let his international failures affect his performances for Middlesex, then Surrey. In his late 30s, his scoring in county cricket was amazingly prolific. He rarely made fewer than 1000 first-class runs in a summer and in 2006 he racked up an astonishing 2,278 at an average of over 100. I don't accept the argument that his run tally owes everything to awful county bowling attacks. If so, why didn't anyone else come remotely close ?
Even after his unexpected success in TV's 'Strictly Come Dancing', his batsman's twinkle-toes bringing him maximum salsa points in the final, he maintain his reputation as a run machine, yet still selectors refused to pick him for England, opting instead for Trott, Bopara, Morgan or Bell. It was only in the past 18 months when his form started to dip. He was no longer such a brilliant fielder either, and a dreadful start to 2012 no doubt precipitated his decision to call it a day mid-season aged 42.
So what legacy does Mark Ramprakash leave behind? As well as a mighty impressive array of statistics he will be remembered as a stylish player wih an engaging if quite understated personality which earned a wider audience through 'Strictly'. True, he wasn't a roaring success for England but, in these days of central contracts and burgeoning T20 competitions, I expect he will be the last player to score a hundred centuries and more than 30,000 runs in the first-class game, and so his name will never be forgotten.
