A Marked Difference

By Catherine Goble
January 11 2004

After an interview with Mark Rampraksh Cartherine Goble has written an indeth artcile about the History of Ramps and what he said in the interview. For Middlesex fans it is must read.

A MARKED DIFFERENCE

“Surrey are a successful, forward looking club that I am proud to be a part of.”

Mark Ramprakash moved to Surrey three years ago, after spending his formative years with Middlesex. Mark’s development since this move seems to have changed him, both as a player and as a person. He now appears outwardly happier, confident and more comfortable with himself both on and off the field. His personal achievements whilst playing for the South London club reflect that.

Mark started his career as a Middlesex colt when he was 9 years old and then signed for them professionally at the age of just seventeen. He made his first-class debut on April 25 1987 against Yorkshire, making scores of 17 and 63 not out, moving Arnie Sidebottom to predict “That lad’ll play for England.” He was awarded his county cap in 1990 and during his 14 years with Middlesex, Mark represented his country fifty five times (42 Tests and 13 ODIs) and scored a massive 19,048 first class runs at an average of 46.34. He was appointed as Middlesex captain when Mike Gatting stood down halfway through the 1997 season. Mark cites Gatting as his favourite person to have batted with in his career. “We spent a lot of time at the crease and I learnt so much off him.” Whether this extended to his captaincy skills is undecided. Mark admits that he didn’t have a particularly successful time as captain. “I think it’s a great shame that I had a taste of captaincy at Middlesex for 3 years, but it didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. But I learnt a great deal from it. I think that getting a second choice, knowing what I know now, that I’d make a much better go of it.” Mark gave up the captaincy at the end of the 1999 season and was awarded a benefit year in 2000 for his services to the club. However, at the end of this year (his second most successful season after 1995 - when he topped the Whyte and Mackay batting averages, a feat he achieved again in 1997), he was only offered a 2 year contract when all through his career he had signed for 3 years. Phil Tufnell was the same. It was at this point that he thought, “You don’t know what you’re doing” adding, “I think I was disillusioned with the way Middlesex was being run, and obviously having been captain for 3 years I had a big insight into that. I just felt it wasn’t moving on. We failed to attract players…saying that hopefully the youngsters will come through. We had three very indifferent seasons bringing up the rear in the county structure and I didn’t see anything that was going to change that. The leadership wasn’t there in the management of the club. It had to be pretty bad for me to even contemplate going. I was Middlesex through and through and I had never envisaged leaving. But so much had gone on and I couldn’t see things changing…I only hope that the fact we (Ramprakash and Richard Johnson) left has maybe changed a few things.”

And so Mark moved across the river to the Oval. “I felt that the point of having two divisions would meant that the standard would be higher in the first division. The offer from Surrey was very exciting and I had friends who played there. I thought that if I was scoring runs in the first division that would help me push for an International recall.” That recall did come in the 2001 home Ashes series to replace the injured duo of Graham Thorpe and Nasser Hussain. Mark has had a very stop-start International career, making his Test debut in 1991, against the West Indies at Headingley, and playing a total of 52 Tests since, his last being against New Zealand in Auckland in March 2002. However, Mark was never a permanent fixture in the Test side and was constantly being dropped and recalled which, “without doubt” affected his performances at the highest level. For a man blessed with such technical excellence, and 23, 223 first-class runs at an average of 47.39 at the time of writing, his 2350 Test runs at 27.32 do him no justice. His under-par performances for England led to scathing media reports. “I have had success at Test level and people like to think that I haven’t, but I have. I have played well consistently at Test level and I feel, when I look at it, very satisfied that I’ve come through it the way I have after all I’ve had to put up with. It’s been very difficult, very very difficult. And it started at a young age. I don’t know whether the press realise the influence they have over cricketers with the sort of things that they write. For me, personally, I’ve copped a lot, and it was difficult to remain strong. I feel that I have a strong character to be where I am because I’ve not given up.”

Mark has scored two Test centuries, the first being 154 against the West Indies in Barbados in 1998 and the second 133 against Australia in 2001 at what was by then his home ground – the Oval. He rates these as two of his favourite first-class hundreds as they were “at Test match level and the calibre of the two attacks…was very high.” But he also recognises his maiden first-class century, against Yorkshire in 1989, as his most pleasurable. “That would have to rate highly because again I think it was against a decent attack – Arnie Sidebottom and Paul Jarvis – and the wicket was quite a challenging one.” Mark has recorded 66 first-class centuries, including 9 double hundreds, in his career so far. On the 29th June this year, he became the first batsman to score a century against all first-class counties. Middlesex had been promoted to the first division of the Championship for the first time and Mark took the first available opportunity to complete his set by reaching 110 against them at the home of cricket. “At the time it gave me no special pleasure to score runs against Middlesex. People forget…I spent a long time at the club. Playing at Lord’s and scoring runs at Lord’s is an immense privilege and now, looking back, scoring hundreds against everyone, it gives me a lot of satisfaction.”

To top off a very successful 2003 season for Mark at Surrey, in which he headed the batting averages in both forms of the game (scoring 1,444 first-class runs at an average of 76, and 750 limited overs runs at 62.50), he managed to surpass his previous highest first class score with an unbeaten innings of 279 against Nottinghamshire at Whitgift School. “That was very nice, because that was ’95 here (Headingley – when he made 235 against Yorkshire), so it brought back a few memories of that. I felt afterwards that I played very fluently, which was nice. And, of course, we went on to win the game which was good…so it made it all the more satisfying.”

Mark believes the move to Surrey has “matured me as a player, and made me a better player, playing with these guys. Practising in a different environment and being open to different ideas has just progressed me and given me a new viewpoint…It’s nice to get a different outlook and I’ve certainly done that. It’s given me a much wider experience of how things can be done.”

Ramprakash’s role within the team is predominantly as a top-order batsman where he looks to “contribute as many runs as I can in different competitions. That would mean trying to get the side off to a fairly solid start. I think if I see it past the new ball then we generally get a good score.” However, he also sees being a team player as an important aspect and “to try to be happy and relaxed and contribute to the team effort. In the three years at Surrey I’ve learnt a lot. The move has really helped in that respect. You keep learning. Playing with a different set of people in a different dressing room all helps.” During his years at Middlesex, Mark was thought to lack the team spirit, which he has now fully embraced in the Surrey dressing room. He was often seen as being difficult and was labelled as part of the ‘brat pack’, with Nasser Hussain, Graham Thorpe and Dominic Cork. “I think the media are very quick to latch on to things. Certainly…I say what I feel and a lot of times that has got me into trouble. I would argue that I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I’m always on time, I’m always well-dressed, always well-presented. But when I’m playing my cricket, I do get very into it. I make no apology for that. And sometimes you get into situations where things can boil over. But you walk a very fine line as a competitor in professional sport. I think, every now and then, that you’re only human…I handle it a lot better now, but when I was younger, to get out really annoyed me if it was my fault…I’d let that upset me for a period of time much longer than perhaps most people. That wasn’t a good thing.”

This new attitude and maturity has also added to Mark’s self-belief, and he is now in the position where he can help the younger, less experienced, players to fit in so that they don’t have to go through the turmoil that affected him as a young player when he was making his way in the game and trying to feel as though he belonged, with very little outside support. “I look back to when I was doing what they are doing and coming into a side. I know how difficult it is. I enjoy messing about with them and making them feel that yes, the cricket is very important, but there has to be a relaxed team spirit as well.”

Mark has recently signed another 3 year contract with Surrey, which will keep him at the club until the end of the 2006 season, when he will be turning 37 years old. When asked about what motivates him to carry on, he replied. “I always feel that I’ve had lots of rainy days when it comes to cricket, lots of low scores. So I always like, if I get in, to make sure I make the most of it. That sort of fires me up…You’ve got to enjoy the time you’ve got left, so that keeps me going. For me, looking back on a Test career with lots of ups and downs, I take pride in doing well at county level, because that definitely means something.” Since joining Surrey, Mark has played in 10 further Test matches, 5 more ODIs and scored 3,414 first-class runs at an average of 63.22, with 13 centuries. He has also been an integral part of the squad winning 4 trophies for the club. A record to be proud of and a distinct improvement on his career figures for Middlesex.

For someone who has, by his own admission, had a very mixed cricketing career and experienced high and lows throughout, he is now much more upbeat about his accomplishments and remarked, “I suppose, in simple terms, if you work hard and put in then you always know you’ve given it your best shot and don’t regret it.” To me, this comment sums up Mark’s newfound approach and demeanour. From the slightly insular man, lacking in confidence, that he once was, Mark has blossomed during his time at Surrey and the conviction present in all of Surrey’s playing staff has now finally been instilled into him. Who knows how different his career may have been if he had been able to discover this self-assurance earlier and been nurtured properly as a youngster? We will never find out. But what we do know is that, with at least three more years at Surrey, we haven’t seen the last, or possibly the best, of a man who is indisputably one of the most talented and beautiful batsmen in the country.