Well done Ramps

Bernard from Horsham

Hear Hear!!!

Verity

He's extremely cute, but I wish he'd lose that awful beard. Also, he looks better clad in cricketing white rather than billboards.

But he is a very elegant player.

Will

How can someone who has never succeeded in international cricket be deemed "one of the modern game's finest batsmen"?

Ann

Nothing wrong with that lovely beard.
Will, you don't really get cricket, do you?

Fergus Pickering

Pietersen's better.

wonderfulforhisage

Verity; Cricketers cute?.... Oh well, I suppose that comment is the inevitable outcome of allowing women into The Pavilion!

Will; very easily. Have you ever seen Hicks bat?

Verity

Anne, addressing someone called Will, writes: "Will, you don't really get cricket, do you?" Well, that should take the wind out of your sails, Will! You don't understand cricket!

As a woman, I love cricket. In test matches, they all look like heroes. Fast bowlers are lovely.

Ramprakesh needs to look a little less self-regarding. Real sports heroes don't have facial hair. They just don't.

I don't like men clad in billboards. Cricketing whites is the most elegant form of sports dress ever invented. If I wanted to watch a mobile billboard,I would tune in to the deeply stupid sport of car racing. (This will not happen.)

Will

Ann, what are you talking about?

I'm left slightly confused, thinking that I've possibly missed a joke.

What's next, Shaun Udal - one of the modern game's greatest bowlers?

Fergus Pickering

Verity, real sports heroes don't have facial hair? That's hard to substatiate if it's cricket you're talking about. There's Dr Grace of course, and pretty well every Edwardian cricketer (except the greatest of them, Victor Trumper, it's true). Most of the great cricketers of the sub-continent have facial hair. The geatest batsman I've ever seen, Viv Richards, may not have had much on top, but he had plenty of beard. And are you telling us that the great Monty is not a sporting hero, and the even greater Bishan Bedi before him. And lovely Fred, what would you call that Desperate Dan stuff on his chin - bum fluff? I suggest the divine Kevin grows a beard. It would give him the gravitas he sometimes lacks.

Paul B

Well done Mark. As Middlesex man, I was sad when you left for the Brown Hatters south of the river, and it also upset me that you never quite fulfilled your potential at Test level.

However I will forever remember that golden summer when you (Im not sure of the exact figures) when you scored 20 odd 1st class centuries. and just completely dominated the scene with some glorious & elegant batting. That year will forever live fondly in memeory.

Well dome Ramps- hey how about having a go as Englands skip!! Now that would be swansong to talk about.

Verity

Fergus Pickering, right on schedule. I knew that some pedant would bring up W G Grace. That was 100 years ago, for God's sake!

Customs and fashions change. W G Grace would look too heavy and ungainly for today, as well, although he was a hero of his time.

Please. Let's not get silly. Beards today look tacky and attention-seeking. Also, I don't like crickets becoming mobile billboards, like racing cars and drivers. I don't like seeing them brought down to that level.

Verity

Further, Fergus Pickering, A decade or so before W G Grace, women were still wearing bustles, which were thought of as elegant and feminine at the time. The thing about human beings that we don't share with other animals is, we have fads.

Ann

Will, anyone who doesn't understand Ramps' greatness in the domestic game, and thinks that there isn't any cricket other than international cricket, doesn't get the point and spirit of the game.

"Real sports heroes don't have facial hair. They just don't" - that must be one of the silliest statements I have ever read. It certainly is the silliest comment I have ever read about cricket. Facial hair has exactly nil to do with one's ability to play cricket.

And do yourself a favour: try to learn and understand the concept of spelling people's names correctly.

Fergus, KP may or may not be 'better' (one thing he is much worse at, indeed worse than any other senior batsman in international cricket, is his inability to build an innings patiently), but that has nought to do with the fact that Ramps is a hero of the game.

Fergus Pickering

Ah Verity, shall I tell you what a pedant is? A pedant is someone who defeats you in argument. Re W.G. Grace. In his prime, in the 1870s, he was not fat and out of condition. He competed in, and won, national hurdling races. He was also TWICE AS GOOD as the next best batsman, a man called Richard Daft. In other words he averaged twice as many runs per innings. Even Bradman did not manage that. Grace was the greatest cricketer who ever lived and there will never be another as good. Re Pietersen, he destroys his opponents and he also average about twice what Ramprakash did in test matches. Of course he is better. Congratulations to Ramps, all the same, a good player who lacks something at the highest level, the Colin Montgomery of cricket, if you like.

Verity

Thanks, Fergus, you've just illustrated what a pedant is to such effect that I couldn't fight my way all the way through your post.

I think there's something wrong with men who cover their faces with hair. It is bizarre and best left to imams so that we may identify them easily.

Ann

KP is too self-centred. Of course he is not better.

As to WGG being "the greatest cricketer who ever lived and there will never be another as good" - can we have something of what you are on?

Fergus Pickering

Ann re KP Is. Is. Is.