I dont disagree with you. I just think that even if he was selected his previous record would give him a very short leash and he wouldnt have a proper opportunity to perform.Keep in mind though that his purple patch has come after his last Test. Players do improve, even late in their careers. Ramprakash was always a heavy scorer in FC cricket, but in the last few seasons he's taken it to a whole new level. If, in Test cricket at this stage of maturity, he can achieve even a third of what he has at domestic level, he would be better than practically all of the England batting lineup right now.
Hick, no, but Ramps and Caddick, yes.TBH, if its all about the next 3 match series I think you could prob slot Ramps, Hick and Caddick into the team and have an improved chance.
I've seen you bring this up a few times, and while I agree that, if he did indeed fail, it'd make his career look all the more pathetic, selecting Ramprakash wouldn't be about doing him any favours per say. It's up to him to make himself available or unavailable based on what he thinks he has to lose or gain from playing - the selectors have the responsibility of selecting the team they think will give England the most chance of success for any given game, not making careers look as good as possible and protecting players from blips on their radar.Especially if he were to have returned to a World that was nothing like that which he had left. Nothing remains from Ramprakash's final Test. Even Andrew Flintoff and Matthew Hoggard - mediocre fringe players at that point - are gone now. His fellows Butcher, Atherton, Hussain, Stewart and Thorpe are long gone. Ashley Giles, part of the team with him for a very short time but of a similar generation, is gone too. This would make any new failure still worse.
I know this. I've always made an effort to distance comments about "should Ramprakash be picked?" from comments about "what will happen should Ramprakash be picked?"I've seen you bring this up a few times, and while I agree that, if he did indeed fail, it'd make his career look all the more pathetic, selecting Ramprakash wouldn't be about doing him any favours per say. It's up to him to make himself available or unavailable based on what he thinks he has to lose or gain from playing - the selectors have the responsibility of selecting the team they think will give England the most chance of success for any given game, not making careers look as good as possible and protecting players from blips on their radar.
To be fair to the current batch of selectors, if they were overly worried about making difficult decisons they wouldn't have dropped Hoggard for this current test. It was certainly not a decision that'd been called for in any section of the cricket media that I'd seen & it had to potential to blow up in their faces if Jimmy tanked.I know this. I've always made an effort to distance comments about "should Ramprakash be picked?" from comments about "what will happen should Ramprakash be picked?"
Also, let's not forget that being a selector should maybe be exclusively 100% about picking the side you think has the best chance, but it doesn't always come down completely to that. And I'm not commenting on the rights and wrongs of this, but the realities. Picking Ramprakash and him failing again would not merely reflect badly on Ramprakash, but the selectors. And they'd be disproportionately criticised, I think, for taking such a decision - or at the very least it'd then be disproportionately brought-up and tried to be used in connection to other (very possibly completely unrelated) mistakes.
There is and always will be in the minds of those who are interested in their own legacies as well as that of their team's, a keenness to make the least controversial, the least possible-to-backfire-really-badly, decisions. Nasser Hussain (one who was always very devil-may-care on this front) talks a hell of a lot about this in David Graveney (who he says always tried to keep everyone happy in his selections). And while it may be disappointing if selectors shy away from "head-above-the-parapet" decisions purely for fear of excessive criticism, can you really blame them for fearing villification? I can't. I know the fickle ways of the cricketing World (both media and Joe Public) too well.
No, certainly. However, the current lot of selectors have been in-office for all of, what, 3 weeks? The Ramprakash decisions to date have been taken by a different panel. It'll be interesting to see how he's treated next summer should the run-spree continue.To be fair to the current batch of selectors, if they were overly worried about making difficult decisons they wouldn't have dropped Hoggard for this current test. It was certainly not a decision that'd been called for in any section of the cricket media that I'd seen & it had to potential to blow up in their faces if Jimmy tanked.
Not that many have, but Liam and Kev have offered suggestions, and not just in this thread either.I don't think too many posters on CW at least have made any assumptions about Ramprakash being a definite success should he return either. Most have just pointed out that his county form is such that he very possibly deserves another chance.