Sweet dream comes true for Ramprakash

It is often said, and just as often believed, that a man is never more disappointed than when he fulfils a long-held and deeply cherished ambition. He may be "lost in a sweet dream" at the moment, having made the best score on this ground by an Englishman, but you can be sure that when he wakes up Mark Ramprakash will not seek membership of that club.

In the moment of triumph yesterday, a triumph of limitless hope over experience of crippling failure, his smile radiated across Kensington Oval. He is a handsome man at any time, and there was something natural and delightful about the unfettered way he marked his maiden Test hundred. In that face was utter joy.

Three runs away from it and his pulse was racing. It had to be. Everybody else's was. Six of his previous seven scoring strokes had been singles, so exacting was the bowling, so reluctant was Lara to offer him that hundred. On 97, he pushed McLean through the off side, where a thousand English mouths tried to blow the ball over the rope.

What does a man think at a time like that? Does he see his life passing before him, in so many tableaux? Does he scream, silently? Ramprakash's thought bubble may have read: "Are there two runs in it? Aye, aye, I might get back for three. Heavens above, it's got the legs! Four! I'm there!"

On and on he ran, past the stumps, halfway towards the Challenor Stand, where his family were sitting. The crowd roared with heart-felt appreciation but, mercifully, there was no threat of a pitch invasion. Lara shook his hand warmly, and the other fielders clapped along. In the general hubbub it was a good two minutes before play resumed.

If Ramprakash could have picked his day of days, it would surely have looked something like this, against a pair of superlative fast bowlers, with the sun bouncing off a great cricket ground, and with a mucker like Thorpe to hold his hand. "Bloody well done, mate," Thorpe told him when they embraced. "But don't you dare give it away."

In the end it was Thorpe who threw it away, caught at slip as he pushed forward to Hooper. Between them they had saved their team, making 205 runs for the sixth wicket, cheering a crowd that had paid good money to see it, and giving England a chance of winning the game.

Since he justified his recall in Guyana with that fighting half-century, Ramprakash has begun his second life. Nobody can begrudge him the glory, and it could not have been visited upon a more deserving man. In the seven years since he first played for England, as a 21-year-old, self-doubt has threatened to devour him. It has taken 22 Tests and 38 innings to conquer it and now that he has, he can make up for those past disappointments.

It may even strengthen his resolve to remember the dog days, from time to time, as warriors of old used to summon up mental images of their foes. He is not short of mishaps. There was the Lord's Test three years ago when he edged a catch to slip and took an age to leave the crease. In Johannesburg the next winter, he stood transfixed before a rampant Donald and had to watch from the dressing-room verandah as Atherton batted England to one of the great draws.

If he had thought of himself then as a former Test cricketer, one whose chance had come and gone, he would not have been alone. But, instead of wallowing in self-pity, as he had done in the past, he kept on making runs for Middlesex, defying the selectors to ignore him. The responsibilities of captaincy and family life may also have helped him come to terms with himself and he is now enjoying the rewards of a new-found maturity.

What next? Already people are measuring him up for the captain's blazer, which is dangerously premature. He must be left alone to find his own path through the maze of Test cricket, and in his own good time. This man has been so burdened with praise that, for his own sake, he needs to be ignored for a while.

Yesterday it all came right for him. What a day for a daydream. Custom-made for a day-dreaming boy.

From The Times, 14 March, 1998.

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