Let's be honest, Ramps just isn't up to the Test

Ramprakash - so gifted, handsome and complicated - is the great unfulfilled talent of English cricket, at least where it matters most, at the highest level. In 52 Tests for England he averaged only 27, a disappointing return for such an accomplished player.

To watch him play with such freedom and authority for his county and then with such inhibition and anxiety for his country was to understand the importance of temperament in sport - some players of more modest ability, such as Nasser Hussain or Paul Collingwood, have the capacity to will themselves to succeed while, sometimes, those of more extravagant gifts, such as Ramprakash or Graeme Hick, allow themselves to be defeated by expectation.

In the sports psychologist's argot, they aren't mentally tough enough. Yet Ramprakash has been the best player in county cricket for more than a decade now and he has improved with age, achieving late career majesty.

Since the batsman moved to Surrey, in 2001, he has become an engine of run accumulation, scoring century after century, season after season: a contemporary Bradman of the county scene, yet poignantly watched by hardly anyone at all.

It's been said that his taking part in Strictly Come Dancing in 2006 helped him to become an even better player: for so long perceived as being intense and unusually introspective, Ramps, in the arms of his sexy dance partner, finally discovered his inner showman and learned publicly how to relax.

Sports fans like nothing more than a romantic comeback, in the style of Lance Armstrong in this year's Tour de France, or an improbable, time-defying final flourish, such as Tom Watson's brilliant near miss at The Open at Turnberry. It's tempting to think that Ramprakash, just a few weeks short of his 40th birthday, could answer the SOS from the England selectors, slot in at No3 in place of the unhappy Ravi Bopara and score an Ashes-clinching century on his home wicket at the Oval. If it be so, it is a chance which does redeem sorrows that he has ever felt.

But it would not be so, nor should a gamble be taken on him. If ever an innings defined Ramprakash's Test career it was in 1995, when England had to bat two days to save a Test against South Africa in Johannesburg.

Captain Mike Atherton led from the front, batting with characteristic stubborn resolution. He was unbreakable, as he batted for 13 hours to make 185 and secure an unlikely draw. By contrast Ramprakash, who went in first wicket down, was too easily broken; he was out second ball without scoring. On his return to the dressing room, he sat slumped, I was told, "for what seemed like hours, never once looking up, his head in his hands".

We remember Ramprakash the Test cricketer for failures such as this rather as we remember Ian Botham for his extravagant successes.

This may be unfair: Ramprakash performed well on occasions in Tests, averaging 42 in matches against Australia, for instance, just as Botham often performed poorly, especially in his mid-to-late career "Beefy" phase.

But the ultimate verdict on Ramprakash is that when it mattered most, for whatever reason, his best was not good enough at Test level. Leave him be and yet wonder what might have been, at a different time, in another life.

Jason Cowley is editor of the New Statesman