David, Richard and Andy will be here before long. In the meantime, here's an ode to Mark Ramprakash from Paul Weaver...
It is still his first century that Mark Ramprakash remembers most vividly, Paul Weaver writes. And he thought of it again yesterday morning as he packed his bags for the Rose Bowl where today he may become the 25th and probably the final cricketer to score 100 first-class centuries.
"It was for Middlesex against Yorkshire in 1989. Batting at Headingley can be challenging at the best of times and I was up against [Paul] Jarvis, Sidebottom - not Ryan, but his dad Arnie - and [Phil] Carrick. The ball was moving about, I got 128 and we won the game."
As Surrey go into their match against Hampshire today the England batsmen - all substantially inferior players, from a technical perspective - will be finalising their preparations for a Test at Lord's, cricket's grandest stage. It is a poignant backdrop to Ramprakash's potential piece of history-making.
Last year Ramprakash became the first batsman to average more than 100 in consecutive English summers, and he passed 2,000 runs just as he had the year before. "I was talking to a mate of mine the other day and he told me that I would have to score 4,000 runs and average 200 to get back in the England side. Well, I'll do my best. I've told the selectors that I'm available and I've been told that the door is still open.
"Maybe the fact that I haven't played for England since 2002 gives me my motivation," he adds. "Whereas players like Graham Thorpe, Nasser Hussain and Michael Atherton have been able to achieve what they wanted to at international level, it didn't go as well for me. But I'm excited and a little nervous about this week."
At 38, Ramprakash is at the peak of his powers. In his Middlesex years, 14 summers between 1987 and 2000, he scored 51 centuries. In half that time at Surrey he has scored 48 more. Last year he scored an astonishing 30.02% of Surrey's runs which, according to Wisden, is a record for all counties, beating Graeme Hick's 28.96% for Worcestershire in 1988. Hick was also the last to score a century of centuries in 1998.
"Three years ago I made a couple of tiny differences to my batting, my trigger movements, so that I am now into position fractionally earlier and feeling well balanced as the bowler delivers. Oh, and I have a lovely bat."
David Graveney, who as chairman of selectors was tempted to pick Ramprakash last year, remarked that he has become a much more relaxed figure since achieving celebrity status as a ballroom dancer. "I can't believe I will be the last to score 100 hundreds," he says. "I still believe you judge a player by his performances in first-class cricket. But I can see young players being more drawn to the one-day game."
It was Chanu, in Monica Ali's novel Brick Lane, who said: "The thing about getting older is that you don't need everything to be possible any more, you just need some things to be certain."
Cricket followers, and perhaps Ramprakash himself, embrace the certainty of this extraordinary player's excellence. And somehow the outside chance of his playing for England again seems less important.
11am A chilly grey morning, and Darren Gough has just opened up with a beauty to Michael Di Venuto that the Aussie left-hander wasn't good enough to edge, writes Andy Wilson at the Riverside. Gough lost the toss, and Durham's captain Dale Benkenstein, returning to the side after a week at home in South Africa for the birth of his child, chose to bat.
It's a stronger-looking Durham team than the one that collapsed twice against Lancashire at Old Trafford last week with Benkenstein's fellow South African Neil McKenzie also back after taking a game off to be best man at a friend's wedding, and Graham Onions returning from England Lions duty. That meant no place for Mitch Claydon or Garry Park, the wicket-keeper whose occasional medium pace condemned Andrew Flintoff to a pair.
No Michael Vaughan or Matthew Hoggard for Yorkshire, and with three other seamers missing they have included Ben Sanderson, a 19-year-old from Sheffield who took 10 wickets for the second team against Notts last week - although his involvement could be restricted to the first innings if Hoggard doesn't make England's final cut at Lord's tomorrow giving Yorkshire the option of recalling him to the frozen north.
11.30am Good Morning from the Rose Bowl, writes Richard Rae - and yes, it could happen today; the Brown Caps won the toss and Mark Butcher chose to bat. However the fact that Ramprakash, on 99 hundreds, is already at the wicket - and has just had a most un-Ramps like hoik at Tremlett - tells you something about the pitch. It's right over on the west side of the square, which is regarded by the locals as the 'result' side. It has a greenish tinge, and Tremlett and Tomlinson are swinging the ball. Tremlett got Batty first ball, caught at second slip - a fine low catch by Adams.
Newman has struck two sweet boundaries - but after a long look, Ramps is up and running, 16th ball, square driven in the air just past a diving Carberry at cover point. Next ball - top edges a pull for three - no-one at midwicket, of course - and Tremlett kicks the ground in frustration. Lucky, both times - but in Tomlinson's next over, Ramprakash clips him off his thigh behind square for his first legitimate boundary. Surrey 30-1, Newman 15, Ramprakash 13.
11.35am This year cricket grounds are not doing pastoral, bemoans David Hopps at Taunton. This year cricket grounds are doing development. Just about everywhere you go is a a hard-hat zone, a Health & Safety officer's dream. Even Taunton's backdrop has changed, with the shimmering Quantocks partly obscured by a large crane, a couple of diggers and a team of workmen in sedate frame of mind.
In front of this hive of non-activity is one Marcus Trescothick, opening for Somerset after Sussex won the toss and elected to field. It is the start of a new England Test summer tomorrow with the first Test against New Zealand at Lord's. How oblivious is he, I wonder, to the hoo-hah? How often does the England lifestyle he has walked away from cross his mind?
I reckon that it troubles him less than you think. Just because a man decides he can no longer handle the international treadmill. it does not mean that he has abandoned life. There remain good things to enjoy.
It would be nice to see him bat for a few hours. But then it would be nice to see the Quantocks without the cranes in the way. Whoever imagined that county cricket would be bucking the global recession? The Englishman famously leaning on the fence of an rural cricket ground to smile at the certainties of life is likely to be run over. Life sure ain't what it used to be.
11.55am The clock is ticking on Ben Sanderson's unexpected first-class debut, writes Andy Wilson. Yorkshire coach Martyn Moxon confirmed from the Riverside dressing room that he was nominated before the match as the man to stand down should Matthew Hoggard be omitted by England, and with Hoggard's release confirmed this morning, he could conceivably be ready to bowl at the Riverside after tea today.
Yorkshire could do with him - despite beating the bat on several more occasions, they've been unable to separate Durham's left-handed opening pair of Di Venuto and Mark Stoneman, with the score now 60 without loss in the 16th over.
12.10pm Well, it could have happened today, but it won't - Ramprakash ct Burrows b Tomlinson 17, reports Richard Rae. Pushed at a delivery angled across him, caught behind. One of those really mundane dismissals about which there isn't too much to say, but oddly, the ball has stopped swinging and Newman was - is - starting to look rather comfortable. Yet Ramprakash wasn't.
I saw him bat up at Durham a couple of weeks ago, when he just didn't look as though he believed the wicket was good enough to get a really big score, and there was a similar feeling about this innings. He said in an interview before the season started that he thought he might get his 100th 100 at The Oval, possibly against Yorkshire - ie next week - and you just wonder whether that's in the back of his mind. He'd deny it, no doubt. Perhaps if Newman goes on to get a ton (currently 41 not out) Ramprakash will approach his second innings differently.
12.35pm The county cricket blog can't resist the occasional news flash as well, writes David Hopps at Taunton. The MCC's world cricket committee has called for the ICC to sanction two three-week periods in the global cricket calendar to cater for high-profile events such as the Indian Premier League.
The ECB, led by its chairman Giles Clarke, has so far dismissed talk of windows in the cricket calendar, but one of the windows could conceivably be in June or July and be used for the English Premier League. If they want to ensure that the world's top stars are available for Twenty20 cricket in England as well as India, they may yet reconsider their position.
The MCC committee, which includes such luminaries as Michael Atherton, Geoffrey Boycott, Mike Brearley and Andy Flower, states: "The committee believes that Test cricket is the pinnacle of the game. It therefore follows that players should have the opportunity to represent their country whilst being able to share in the benefits provided by participation in tournaments such as the Indian Premier League. The committee accepts that there is a place for the IPL but that the introduction of this tournament has brought to the fore the issue of premature retirement from the international game."
Another debating point is the MCC's stance on maintaining the balance between bat and ball. The rewritten Law on the materials that can be used in the bat and the bat handle might only be the start. The MCC committee supports those changes, but remains "concerned about the equilibrium between bat and ball".
The next issues that will be investigated - with what is described as "significant MCC funding" - will be the weight and thickeness of bats, the speed of outfield, the thickness of seams on the ball and the positioning of boundary ropes. Enjoy your easy sixes while you can.
2pm Watching Mascarenhas bowl at Butcher, it's interesting to speculate how Hampshire chairman Rod Bransgrove might react if the Dimster, having just returned from an extended holiday in India - he played only one game for the Rajasthan Royals - requests permission to return for the IPL semi-final, writes Richard Rae.
Bransgrove was not impressed that his new captain should have disappeared for a couple of weeks, only to be largely surplus to requirements, but Dimi is reported to be keen to return if the Royals, led by his former county skipper Shane Warne, go through. He'd have to miss the championship game against Kent if he goes, but Bransgrove is understood to have let him known such a request would not be warmly received. Surrey 118-3, Ufzaal 27 and looking good, Butcher (dropped twice since lunch) 17.
2pm Kyle Coetzer has gained a reputation as one of the more promising young batsmen in county cricket, capable of playing a wide range of attacking shots, writes Andy Wilson. But not today. The Scottish son of South African parents - his father came to Aberdeen to work in the oil industry - took 36 deliveries to break his duck, and that was courtesy of a misfield by Darren Gough. In the next over he edged Tim Bresnan to second slip, leaving Durham 118 for two, Bresnan having had Stoneman caught at third slip before lunch. Di Venuto still there on 63. Back on Coetzer and his father's occupation, and the best press-box gag so far is that it was Kyle who was boring today. Every one a winner.
3.15pm Taunton was the spiritual home of Alan Gibson - and it was also where his spirit departed this earth as he actually died in a nursing home in the town, writes David Hopps. Gibson was a Times cricket writer who used to fill his columns with musings about the tardiness of the train from Didcot or the serving ability of the new bar staff. Many found him essential reading to lighten the breakfast hour, although these things are no longer trendy, people being much more interested in exactly how many runs Trescothick has got and whether he might change his mind about playing for England.
It is a great shame, county cricket's overriding purpose being an invitation to its spectators to while away the days with whatever reveries they please.
Trescothick, by the way, got 74 from 146 balls in a Somerset opening stand of 154. Such things are commonplace here. It does not do to become over excited about runs at Taunton, which tips the balance in favour of the bat in precisely the manner that the MCC cricket committee is concerned about. The pitch is flat, the boundaries small; only a ball with a seam that could slash your fingers would change the balance. When Trescothick was out for 74, caught at the wicket off Corey Collymore, a West Indian quick on his championship debut, his fellow left-hander Neil Edwards was 73. The symmetry of it all summed up the ease with which Somerset were dismissing Sussex's attack.
Some claim Alan Gibson for Bristol, where he routinely wrote about GRIP - Glorious Redheaded Imperturbable Pamela - who used to work behind the bar at Bristol. All indulgent stuff, no doubt, but it worked.
But I claim him for Taunton. On my first championship match as a reporter in 1984, I met him outside the red telephone box that used to sit behind the press box. He was filing copy and would not have completed it if, when he fell a little tipsily out of the phone box, still clinging desperately to the phone lead, I had not had the grace to push him back in.
These days, no cricket writer travels by train, and regaling you with the details of a five-hour journey from Leeds, and the seven or so runs of roadworks encountered on the way, does not carry quite the same appeal. "The train from Didcot was seven minutes late," somehow has a sort of Ealing comedy type of magic about it. "I drove for 20 miles down the M42 with two lorries driving next to each other on the dual carraigeway at 40mph,'' lacks the same appeal.
Edwards has just been out for 99. It was a dismissal to drive batsmen mad in more challenging venues. He charged Ollie Rayner and missed, it flew well wide of Matt Prior and Chris Adams flung down the wicket from first slip. To be run out by an underarm throw from first slip is about as careless as it gets for a batsman on 99. Alan Gibson would probably have missed it as he chatted away in the Stragglers Bar, but he would somehow have gathered together enough evidence for a gentle chide by the close.
4pm The news on Matthew Hoggard is there is no news, writes Andy Wilson. It turns out that although England have already announced that he will not be selected in their team for the first Test against New Zealand, he will not actually be released from Lord's until after the toss tomorrow morning. So Ben Sanderson still has a chance of taking his first championship wicket. However it's Anthony McGrath who has made an important breakthrough for Yorkshire after tea, with a long hop which Benkenstein pulled to midwicket. Di Venuto cruises serenely on, now unbeaten on 140 out of 239 for four.
