Another afternoon glancing down the county scores, and the eye almost passes over another Mark Ramprakash 100. 196 against Lancashire almost doesn’t register such is its recent familiarity.

England fast bowler Bob Willis has today claimed that players like Ramprakash and Graeme Hick (along with Kolpak and ‘naturalised’ players) are ‘clogging’ up county cricket and the progression of young English talent, as they are never going to play for England again.

Whilst I cannot fail to begrudgingly agree with Willis on the Kolpak issue, the suggestion that servants to the English game, especially of the county circuit is nothing short of an insult to the system itself, especially when every county would chew your arm off to have the services of these two players such is their form with the bat.

And why shouldn’t Ramprakash be considered for England this winter and onto the 2009 attempt to reclaim the Ashes.

He has topped the runs and the averages for the past two seasons, and whilst he may not have have succeeded the first time around in test cricket, who is to say that given a second chance Ramprakash would fail again. As long as his form continues, he is worthy of a place. Even Owais Shah the heir apparent to the England batting line-up would be unable to argue with Ramprakash’s recent record.

If Ramprakash had been offered the same patience and help that many current England players have been afforded, the story could have been very different. Instead he was inducted into a paranoid and selfish England dressing room aged 21, and left to fend for himself. Team spirit was unheard of back then.

An ideal comparison is Ian Bell, not just as a comparison of style but the parallels of their infuriating mix of mental intensity and frailty. In Ramprakash it was identified as his weakness and he was dropped, selected and re-picked relentlessly, which can have only damaged his psyche further. Bell however has been given an extended run and backing from the entire England set-up even when he had a miserable Ashes in 2005. It now looks as though England are beginning to reap the rewards for their faith.

With Strauss so painfully out of form, and Flintoff injured why not give a man deserving of a second chance, a run in the side with a view to the next Ashes. If he has a bad winter we know it was not to be. If he plays a major part in reclaiming the Ashes his talent will have been at least partially fulfilled.

On the face of things British sport appears to be in rude health. Ever since BSkyB and the Labour government decided that sport would be the vehicle to win the hearts and minds of the British public, it’s been boom time in Britain.

Is the bubble about to burst both on and off the pitch? As Northern Rock, bank and major contributor to sport in the North East felt the credit pinch, Gordon Brown’s assertion that the days of ‘boom or bust’ were a thing of the past seemed as realistic as England’s chance of winning the Rugby World Cup. Read the rest of this entry »

Following a summer break we are returning for another winter of opinion and debate. We could claim that we were away bailing water from flooded houses, taking the world by storm as real journalists or on the best holiday ever. All that would of course be lies of a magnitude normally only ever scaled by politicians.

We were in fact playing sport, or in Jonnos case, lying in hospital recovering from sport. This only accounts for the British wing of the team however. If anyone in New Zealand knows where Fergie is, tell him the English Football team are missing their most generous critic.