Having said a heart-wrenching, sad farewell to Tom Maynard at an emotional funeral service in Wales, Surrey found themselves saying goodbye to their grand old servant Mark Ramprakash but a day later. The contrast between both could not have been greater: one a young man, surely destined for great things, still developing his skills; the other having been top dog for so long at First Class level that there barely seemed a time when he hadn’t been around. Whilst Maynard’s death was tragic and rightly lamented, Ramps’ retirement was disquieting. Perhaps it was always likely the Surrey stalwart would go at the end of September but nobody quite expected him to take leave of the game mid-season.
As it transpired the decision was more or less taken for him, with management – for reasons that I can’t comprehend – informing him they wouldn’t be selecting him in any form of the game from this point on. Faced with such a decision there probably wasn’t very much else he could do other than call time on a marvellous career.
This decision to drop Mark Ramprakash when the team are clearly all at sea following Maynard’s death is perplexing to say the least. With the skipper on compassionate leave Surrey now find themselves another batsman down. Certainly Ramps hadn’t been in good form early season, but if there was ever a time when the team could have done with a wise old head in their ranks it was surely now. And putting aside the players for one moment, it is in my opinion a downright shabby way to treat a man who has carried the team on his back for so many years. Yes, time marches on and the club must move forward: there will be new stars waiting in the wings to step up to the challenges of domestic and international cricket. That’s the way that it should be. But to sweep aside someone who played for them with such dedication seems totally wrong on every level.
From the perspective of the Surrey fans, many of whom are angry, the club have pretty much denied them a chance to say farewell to perhaps the greatest batsman who donned the brown cap in the last twenty or thirty years.
I’d like to say a huge thank you to Mark Ramprakash for several things. Firstly, for inadvertently bringing together the most wonderful tribe of lunatic, cricket-loving friends you could hope to meet! The Rampants will miss you very much: we’ve enjoyed cheering you on from the sidelines over the years.
From a personal point of view, I too have loved going to the Oval and watching the games unfold. I’m sorry I never quite managed to see you score a century, but my timing was rotten and I kept going down to London on the wrong day. But also I have to say thank you for giving this rather easily petrified, travel-wary agoraphobic the impetus to get on a train. A few years ago I couldn’t have even done that. It’s a very big deal for me.
Above all, thank you for getting me hooked on cricket. If somebody had told me 20 years ago I’d have liked the game I would have thought they were off their rocker...and if they’d told me I’d understand the basic rules that too would have had me rolling my eyes in disbelief! Everyone has their own sporting hero, be it the great and the lauded such as Sir Viv Richards or Graham Gooch, down to their beer-fuelled favourite uncle chucking pies on the village green every Sunday morning. To those headline writers in the newspapers waxing lyrically about the ends of eras, or those who seek to take a final dig at one of this country’s finest stroke makers, I would remind them that heroes come in all shapes and forms. Mark Ramprakash wasn’t everybody’s favourite cricketer but he was mine, and perhaps one day people will be able to look past achievements on the international stage and realise that 114 FC centuries is not something to be dismissed as of no consequence.
If that is considered a career filled with underachievement, may the good lord afflict me with similar failure for the rest of my days!
Enjoy your retirement, sir! You’ve more than earned it.
