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That’s 98 first-class hundreds, you understand. OBVIOUSLY he’s gone past a hundred in the match.
And obviously he’s not out as well. He’s just returned to the crease and Lancashire’s bowlers will be drying their eyes. Mark Ramprakash has hit a hundred in each of his last three championship innings, all of which were against Lancashire.
Generally speaking we’re against bringing back older players for England, but if someone’s averaging over 100 every single season and has 98 first-class centuries to their name, it doesn’t really matter if they’re 20 or 50. That batsman is the best there is. There isn’t a decision to be made if you’re an England selector. It’s just something you do, like eating meals or brushing your teeth.
If a cricketer’s taken the trouble to get so accomplished at batting that they can outperform all of their peers to such a frightening degree, then you don’t just owe that player a place in the England team, you owe it to the public, because everybody wants to know just how good that batsman is and they all suspect it’s ‘very’.
Owais Shah knows he needs to do better than Mark Ramprakash to get into the England team and he too scored a hundred yesterday.
Another one? Just how many Transformers does the man need exactly?
Another good start to the season – Shane Bond took 7/66 for Hampshire against Sussex yesterday.
Well done Ramps, but really I was just writing to point out that in the Times you’ve been rated 4th best cricket blog (no wrong, I mean website in fact!) in the known universe. Only behind cricinfo and other behemoths. I should warn you KC though, you have been named!
Even more unrelatedly, did anyone see Last Man Standing on Sunday night where the 6 guys particpated in some Papua New Guinean version of cricket, learnt from the missionaries but distorted by 100 years of island influence, resulting in about 50-a-side tribal games that include special dances for each type of wicket celebration, including the octopus dance for catches. Really, really worth watching
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2OLeJeMzEk
if you watch it you’ll see other links for other clips from the programme
We didn’t get to be the fourth best cricket website in the eyes of Patrick Kidd of The Times without covering Last Man Standing, you know.
We ‘did’ Last Man Standing almost a year ago.
Was it the same episode or is it a new series?
Ah, I guess it was the same thing, but I never saw it then as it was on BBC3 (which i didn’t have) and is finally now being run on BBC2, after MOTD2
Just read your link – glad to see you deem the octopus dance worthy of special mention too.
I don’t see any need to comment because Ramps clearly doesn’t need to let anything other than his mighty bat do the talking.
To say he’s been harshly treated is something of an understatement. All very Michaelivaughanian if you ask me.
Oh, and I’m most looking forward to seeing the octopus dance when I get home.
I do like “michaelivaughian”. Whoever thought of that – clever.
graeme hick is apparently looking in good form this year……
Saw Hick walloping sixes galore in some beach cricket fest the other evening . So Hick and Ramprakash, Caddick, Gough, Ali Brown…… could we aim for the oldest Test team?
Not a bad idea, Ceci. Perhaps we could also solve the wicket-keeping problem by bringing back Jack Russell.
It’s one more thing taken away from the Aussies, anyway.
Just seen the octopus dance. Oh yeah!