More votes for Ramps

I’ve covered the whole squad now, and judging by the mailbag, the biggest issue is … Ramps. Half the comments express astonishment that he is even being mooted. The other half just want to see him on the plane. One correspondent accuses me of being on a “one-man crusade” here. It’s true that I’m a fan and that it has occasionally been a lonely business, but this time round, there’s plenty of company.

In today’s Guardian, Mike Selvey says that if there are “any qualms” about including Marcus Trescothick, and the selectors want a player of similar experience, “then Mark Ramprakash, the best technician of his generation with a good record in trying circumstances in Australia, should be included”. And Frank Keating, in his magnificently adjectival back-page column, points out that “stalwart ancients” like Graham Gooch and Geoff Boycott made stacks of Test runs in their late thirties.

Christopher Martin-Jenkins of The Times said on Monday that “one could make a good case” for Ramps. And in the new edition of The Wisden Cricketer, out later this week, David Fulton, the former Kent captain, joins the campaign. Asked if Ramps would be more philosophical and less intense now, Fulton says: “I think so, and I think he’d have a fabulous Ashes tour.” As one of the comments here says, it ain’t gonna happen. But it should.