One more celebration for Mark Ramprakash will put him in a famous club © Getty Images

Mark Ramprakash has the chance to reach a major milestone this week, needing just one century to reach 100 first-class hundreds. He could be the last player to achieve the landmark and would join just 24 others to have achieved it in the history of the game.

He has already ticked off two of three centuries he needed at the start the season with effortless innings against Lancashire and Sussex. He now faces Hampshire, on a Rose Bowl surface that is beginning to flatten out after being a seam bowler's paradise for a number of years. In the recent England Lions-New Zealand match there were three centuries on an easy-paced surface.

"There are some great names in the history of the game that have made it there," Ramprakash told Sky Sports News. "When I think about them and how good they are, to join them in that club would be very special."

Ramprakash turns 39 in September but shows no sign of losing the supreme run-scoring powers that have brought him more than 2000 runs in each of the last two seasons and 46 centuries since his move from Middlesex in 2001.

The other batsmen nearest to 100 hundreds are three Australians - Justin Langer, Matthew Hayden and Stuart Law - but they are unlikely to have the years left to join the list. Ramprakash will certainly etch his name into history, even if it doesn't happen at The Rose Bowl over the next four days.