My Hundred: from 70 to 61

 70: David Lawrence

The term ‘whole-hearted cricketer’ could have been invented specifically for David Lawrence. Gloucester born and bred, his pace got him noticed in the late Eighties when England were constantly marmalised by the West Indies. Like Devon Malcolm he wasn’t always the most accurate but he made his debut in a one-off Test against Sri Lanka in ’88. I saw him play exactly three years later against the same opponents at Lord’s but his next Test v NZ in Wellington that winter ended in agony when he fractured a kneecap, effectively ending a promising and popular career. 

69: Jack Russell

RC ‘Jack’ Russell was one of England’s greatest eccentrics. He was also probably the best wicketkeeper since Alan Knott and Bob Taylor but was restricted to only 54 Tests in the ‘80s and ‘90s by Alec Stewart’s superior batting. A Gloucestershire stalwart for 24 seasons, he accumulated around 1,900 dismissals and ground out plenty of vital lower-order runs. An accomplished artist, he is best remembered by me for his battered white sun-hat and 'non-standard' black gloves which somehow survived his whole career. 

68: Courtney Walsh

Another veteran of Gloucestershire, the lanky Jamaican not only became the first bowler to reach 500 Test wickets but he also had the fitness required to take more than 1,800 in all first-class cricket. I saw him play against Essex in 1984 before his first Test call-up then again in his final Lord’s appearance in 2000, earning a standing ovation as he strode out with bat in hand. He won more applause when this bunniest of rabbits actually scored a single! Always a good sport, Walsh also memorably collapsed with laughter at the MCG when facing the blue-haired Aussie spinner Colin Miller! 

67: Rahul Dravid

In the modern era, Rahul Dravid was an anachronism. ‘The Wall’ rarely whacked it around nor had crowds on their feet screaming his name, yet he was as much part of India’s golden period as Tendulkar, Dhoni or Kohli. Nobody in Test match history has faced more deliveries nor spent more time at the crease and only three have made more runs. I finally managed to see him in tandem with Sachin, albeit briefly, in a friendly at Taunton nine years ago, when he scored 17 and faced 20-odd ‘dots.  A master craftsman of innings building, he knew when to defend and when to strike: one of the last of a dying breed. 

66: Mark Ramprakash

Like Graeme Hick, ‘Ramps’ never quite succeeded in consistently converting prolific county form into stellar performances for England. His Test average was a mediocre 27, barely half of his career first-class number. After England eventually gave up on him in 2002, ironically he became peerless in the county game. Having swapped Middlesex for Surrey, in 2006 he averaged over 100 in the Championship and went on to break the barrier of 100 first-class centuries, probably the last man to achieve the feat. A delight to watch when in form, both with the bat and fielding at cover. 

65: Glenn Turner

The New Zealander was not the prettiest strokemaker but during the Seventies was consistently one of the finest opening batsman in the county game. Playing for one of the weaker Test nations at the time, he nonetheless averaged nearly 45, saving his best for the two most successful opponents, Australia and the West Indies. I used to admire him making runs for Worcestershire, for whom he compiled many of his 103 first-class and 14 limited-overs centuries. 

64: Gladstone Small

I could recite a load of stats to justify the Bajan’s presence in my list. There are his plentiful wickets for Warwickshire and match-winning one-day spells to consider. In particular he was Man of the Match at the Boxing Day Ashes Test in 1986. However, he’s better remembered for his almost cartoonish appearance. All collar and no neck, his bowling run-up recalled a clockwork toy wound up to the max but he became a top-class bowler who also seemed to have fun, which I always liked. 

63: Barry Richards

Like Glenn Turner, the South African was a blonde opening bat who was very difficult to get out and scored heavily in the 1970s when my love of cricket took flight. Robbed of surefire global stardom by his country’s pariah status (he managed only four Tests, at an average of 72 before the anti-apartheid ban), his stage was for me the county game. At Hampshire he formed one of the most jaw-dropping of county opening partnerships with Gordon Greenidge and was often even more exciting to watch than the West Indian. A giant of his era, yet not quite my favourite Richards! 

62: Chris Woakes

More than a decade ago, I associated the name of Chris Woakes with a Warwickshire Fantasy Cricket points machine. Ostensibly a metronomic fast-medium seamer, he proved he could also score runs, and in 2011 topped his county’s first-class averages with both bat and ball. I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t picked for England, but his chance duly came. Just last week, the newly-bearded Woakes claimed a five-for in England’s defeat of Pakistan, but it was Stuart Broad who dominated the headlines. That seems to be Woakes’ fate: the cruelly underrated ultimate support act. 

61: Tim Murtagh

Like Woakes, Murtagh has been a long-standing feature near the top of County Championship bowling averages. He has been swinging the ball through the defences of all the best batsmen for two decades, notably for Middlesex, but it was only in his thirties that he won the chance to represent Ireland in ODIs then three Tests. It was June 2005 when I first became aware of him, watching him take 6-24 in an after-work clash at Lord’s and just this week, at the age of 39, he was bowling Middlesex to another triumph against Surrey, this time in the Bob Willis Trophy. Tim represents everything I love about county cricket.

Cricketing Honours and 2012 Farewells

Amidst the many Olympic and Paralympic athletes and usual array of political arse-lickers in the New Year's Honours List, there were a few deserving cases from the world of cricket. The late Tony Greig may have been beyond the pale as far as the Establishment is concerned, but his predecessor as England captain, Mike Denness, has at least been recognised with an overdue OBE. He played 28 Tests for England, 19 of them as skipper, averaging a creditable 40 with the bat. His 22-season first-class career, including long stints with Kent and Essex, yielded almost 26,000 runs, alongside more than 5,000 in one-dayers. He must be one of the most successful Scottish-born cricketers in history.

MBEs have gone to a couple of recent retirees who have made frequent apparances in my blog: Mark Ramprakash and Robert Croft. Both never quite attained world-class status, despite their prolific run-scoring (Ramps) and wicket-taking (Croftie) in county cricket. The lowly honour is the very least their two decades and more of professional dedication deserves, especially when compared with OBEs and CBEs doled out to gold medallists in their early twenties!

I don't know where the Commonwealth stands in terms of the archaic British honours system but where on earth is the knighthood for Rahul Dravid? This list probably came too soon for Ricky Ponting but I hope we get a chance to greet Sir Ricky come the summer. Perhaps the civil servants are awaiting the full retirement of Sachin Tendulkar before giving out gongs to overseas cricketing legends. 2013 maybe?! Perhaps Andrew Strauss will join them now that he has bidden farewell to Test and county cricket after Graeme Smith et al thumped England.

Others who bowed out without an invitation to the Palace include Aussie run machine Michael di Venuto (although still available for one-dayers, despite this being his least favoured format) and Charl Willoughby, the South African left-arm swing merchant who performed sterling service for several counties, including my own Somerset, albeit only five times for his country.

Less-renowned county stalwarts also merit a mention here. Jonathan Batty was a fine wicketkeeper-batsman for Surrey and Gloucestershire, and was unlucky not to play for England. He tended to be eclipsed by his Surrey colleague Alec Stewart for the first half of his career, but went on to score more than 12,000 runs and claim 1000-odd victims behind the stumps. Will Jefferson was a powerful, very tall left-handed opening batsman but has called it a day at 32 because of a persistent hip injury, rather than the inconsistent performances which often held him back. The somewhat shorter 'keeper, Ben Scott, has also retired at a young age (31). Whilst clocking up more than 100 first-class matches, including a few for the Lions, he couldn't quite hold his own in 2012, and his century for Worcestershire in July will probably prove to be his last.

Congratulations to all of the above for giving us all such pleasure over the years, medals or no medals.

Mark Ramprakash: Success or Failure?

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.