Bangladesh improving in spite of dearth of international cricket: Mark Ramprakash

Mark Ramprakash once boasted of being one of England’s most technically correct batsman. Similar to Graham Thorpe, Ramprakash was one of the better batsmen in the side. However, with age comes a certain perspective, and that perspective has now seen the once-England batsman make a transition into the role of being a batting consultant with the England coaching staff.

Mark Ramprakash, who managed to stay away from controversy during his career has stated his feelings about the players who did not tour Bangladesh in the wake of the terror attacks in Dhaka. Ramprakash also went on to reveal that Bangladesh was a side  that was improving all the time in spite of the dearth of international cricket in the country.

“Bangladesh is improving all the time even though they haven’t played much Test cricket – and this is why it’s so important to fulfill our commitment to tour. Bangladesh needs Test cricket and we should help them as much as we can. Andrew Strauss [England’s director of cricket] has spoken about the need to give a shot in the arm to the Test game and I believe we must develop it as much as we can. Bangladesh has good cricketers. They deservedly beat England in the World Cup last year so we know they are a very good one-day side. But lots of their cricketers have spoken about their desire to develop as Test players. We should welcome that and support Bangladesh”

“It’s up to them. The official line is that everyone is allowed to make their own decision.” The English batting coach suffered a similar problem when there were security concerns on England’s tour of India in 2011 after 9/11 attacks. Andrew Caddick and Robert Croft decided to make themselves unavailable for the tour. Ramprakash elaborated on his decision in 2001 as he said, “Again, I felt it was the right thing to do. I wanted to go. There were no problems. It was a good tour even if it wasn’t particularly memorable in terms of entertaining cricket.”

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Speaking about Test cricket, he said, “I don’t know. I hope so. Test cricket is still the ultimate test and we have wonderful matches. The Pakistan series was great, entertaining cricket.” He also talked about the two-tier system, “I would prefer not to go down that two-tier format. I haven’t thought about it in detail but it’s really important to encourage other nations. Ireland, for example. If we could foster Test cricketers in more countries it can only be a good thing.”

Speaking about Alex Hales, Ramprakash said, “He’s thought long and hard about his game. “Alex played extremely well against Sri Lanka. He got 86 and 94 at Headingley and Lord’s and showed he can build an innings at Test level – and it was a surprise when he got out. I remember how well he was doing at Headingley when the ball was moving around appreciably. He batted time, he left well, he did all the things a traditional Test opener would do.”

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