Thewisdencricketer.com reader David Grundy is the latest winner of our My Favourite Cricketer competition for his entry on the Lancashire and England bowler Brian Statham.

My first was Brian Statham’s last. His retirement game was the Roses match at Old Trafford – I saw him on the Saturday of the August Bank holiday in 1968 (back when it was the first weekend of the month). A school trip had taken me to see cricket at Old Trafford for the first time.

Yorkshire were in their pomp. Close, Trueman, Illingworth were all playing, Boycott absent injured. Illingworth was about to fall out with the Yorkshire committee – the year before he became England captain – and Trueman was in his last season. The Championship they won that season would be their last until 2001.

Lancashire were batting first, and scored not very many. Statham didn’t detain us long, bowled by Richard Hutton for three. I remember Trueman bowling a very gentle first delivery to get him off the mark. Trueman always said Statham was his favourite England partner. His gesture showed his respect for his old mate. But I wasn’t there to admire Statham’s batting.

Statham came on to bowl in the evening sunlight. By close of play Yorkshire were 34 for eight. The following day they were all out for 61, Statham taking six for 34. This was thrilling. We were in raptures. Here was Yorkshire – mighty Yorkshire – being given a bloody nose.

Yet Statham’s modesty shone through in all he did. After the fall of each wicket there were no exuberant celebrations. Bowling batsmen out was what he did. So why waste energy celebrating? That evening he bowled just to show everyone he could still do it.

By today’s standards he didn’t look like a hero. His kit was unadorned by any sponsors’ logos and he certainly didn’t have any tattoos. His job done, he simply slung his sweater over his shoulder and led the team in. The ground stood as one.

In games of backstreet cricket (one shared bat, one hand off the wall and all that) I was Brian Statham. I copied his walk back to his mark and his arrow straight run-up. I was immaculately side-on of course. My running commentary always took me back to that sunlit evening. I found out about his career by devouring books about him. Thus started a lifelong obsession with cricket books for which there is no known cure.

My strictly limited talent for playing meant I would be forever a spectator at Old Trafford. Bank Holiday Saturday in August 1968 wasn’t a bad place to start. I learned to love the game through Brian Statham. My brief encounter with him on that Saturday sparked a lifetime of devotion to the Red Rose. In 1968 Lancashire hadn’t won the Championship for 34 years. 41 years later we are still waiting. We had to cherish moments of success when they came. For me, it was first-time lucky.

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Thewisdencricketer.com reader Rich Cridge is the latest winner of our My Favourite Cricketer competition for his entry on the Hampshire and England batsman Robin Smith.

Cricket has always been there for me: Tony Lewis’s Welsh tones in the background as my father would watch the Test on a summer’s evening. My uncle playing for a local team and occasionally dragging me off to play when they were short; and of course it was always best to visit granny when she was doing the teas.

It was 1988 (I was 10). England were on their third skipper of the season and in the middle of yet another beating at the hands of the rampant West Indians.

The exact date was July 21 and a new player, Robin Smith, strode to the wicket to join Allan Lamb with England in trouble again. For a short time something strange happened: these two batsmen stood up to the West Indian bowlers. We could still win, I thought (well I was only 10!). Then Lamb pulled a muscle in his leg and had to go off; the innings crumbled. But that short moment was my awakening. Cricket had got me and it has never let go since.

Over the next five years, the young Smith would go on, along with Graham Gooch, to become one of England’s best players, the wicket most coveted by opponents. He stood almost alone against the Aussies in ’89. He took a full part in the run glut that was 1990 and then scored two hundreds against West Indies in 1991.

So what was it about Robin Smith? If asked back in ’88 I’d have been unable to answer, but by ’91 I knew. His bravery – he was a real (bats)man. There have been lots of brave batsmen, but they’d have had to go some to beat Smith. On the 1990 tour of the West Indies, while batting without the added safety of a helmet grill, a Courtney Walsh bouncer slammed into this cheek. The camera zoomed in and you could see the swelling grow before your very eyes. Smith didn’t flinch, brushing away the worried West Indian fielders and England’s physio.

He owned the best square-cut in the world. He also lived just down the road from me in my home town of Salisbury, and from time to time he’d be spotted about. As a teenager I was taken to see a county match at Hampshire; Smith’s autograph was the one I had to get. I can remember marvelling at the size of his bear-like hands as he took my pen to sign his name across the card.

His international career was cruelly cut short in 1996, at the age of 32. It was thought that he couldn’t play spin. Maybe he wasn’t the best, but then how many people were mastering Warne, Muralitharan, Kumble and co. at the time? Let’s not forget he hit 128 in Sri Lanka at the end of the ill-fated 1992-93 tour of the subcontinent.

He should have played well into this century and would have become one of England’s all-time greats. Maybe that’s part of his appeal – the best always leave you wanting more.

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Thewisdencricketer.com reader Graham D. Brice is the latest winner of our My Favourite Cricketer competition.

Summer 1968, perhaps ‘69. Me a 15-year-old, gangly, six foot-plus youth, with limited cricketing ability, severe hayfever and a neighbour on my paper round who suggests I could be playing cricket at the weekends for one of the sides in my hometown of Yeovil.

A try out with the second XI sees me immediately relegated to what is called the ‘Yeovil A side’. A collection of 20-somethings, of varying abilities and transport, and an unquenchable thirst that is displayed in numerous rural pubs around Somerset in our weekly quest to avoid defeat.

At the end of each game, we are reminded by the captain to check next week’s paper, The Royal Gazette, where the teams are printed for the following weekend, to verify our selection. A. N. Other is a regular in the squad list, and it is only when he fails to show that I am promoted to No.10 in the batting order.

I bowl occasionally, right-arm spin, sort of, but it is obvious that I am there more to make up numbers than bother the scorers.

However, I can catch a cricket ball, particularly in the slip cordon. On one, only one, memorable occasion I take seven catches in the slips, and although it does not affect the result I do receive an honorable mention in the following week’s sports pages.

In addition to all of the above I am also the youngest player.

We play our home matches at Johnson Park, although as the home turf is jealously guarded by the first and second XIs we play mainly away matches.

On one of our rare home appearances a new player is introduced, a stocky, unremarkable youth, whose sole redeeming feature from my perspective is that he is younger than me.

He constantly pesters the captain to bowl or bat higher in the order. Over the next few weeks he annoys his team-mates by displaying ability and a certain arrogance.

First match, opening overs, I am at first slip, the new kid at second. The ball is rifled towards the slips but low to my right and it is obvious that it is going to bounce before it will reach us. My only instinct is to stick out my right boot in the hope of preventing the ball going between the two of us. Just as the ball is about to land in front of my outstretched boot, a hand – connected to a diving arm and horizontal body – flashes across the grass and cleanly takes the catch.

The batsmen, bowler, wicketkeeper and first slip stand frozen in stunned amazement. The umpire, one of their players, is equally dazzled but eventually he raises a finger and the batsman, muttering under his breath, retreats.

A few weeks later our new player is missing, the captain informs us that he is away playing for the second XI. “Not the Yeovil second XI,” he said “Somerset seconds.”

My career as a weekend cricketer died shortly thereafter, I really did have very little ability, but the fortunes of one I. T. Botham continued to rise. Over the length of his impressive career I, along with millions of others, was privileged to watch sumptuous innings and all-round deeds that sometimes defied rational explanation.

But for all his feats and miraculous efforts, it is one catch, that catch, that is forever etched in my mind. The young school kid playing a man’s game and displaying a precocious ability and talent that not one of us fully appreciated or understood at the time.

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Thewisdencricketer.com reader Derek Watts is the latest winner of our My Favourite Cricketer competition for his entry on Sussex wicketkeeper Jim Parks.

I watched my earliest first-class cricket at the Central Ground in Hastings around 1952. It would have been County Week or the Festival and I was at once captivated by the ebb and the flow, the grace and the power, the names and the history. Here indeed was a game with a glorious past, a thrilling present and an infinite future. Summer, it seemed to an eight-year old, would go on for ever.

I followed Sussex, of course, and Jim Parks was the one who excited me and my friends the most: the player who, like Botham or Flintoff, would empty the bars, who hit with joyous abandon, who pounced on a cover-drive like a cat on a rat and who, when he was out, still smiled at the cricketing fates.

Jim’s is a Sussex life born of the warp and weft of the Weald, his family part of that dynastic tradition enriching the cricketing past of the county which is the cradle of the game. “….the Weald, where cricket grew up, ” wrote Arlott, “has always produced cricketers in the original mould. Thence cometh the men to whom a cricket bat or ball in the hand is as natural as any implement of any other Wealden worker.”

Born of a family of Wealden workers Jim was “a young man of undoubted talents, even brilliance, who (needed only] to set his mind on wiping out one or two defects in his technique to have a good chance of bridging the gap to Test cricket” – so wrote Len Hutton in 1956. Keith Andrew told me, “here was a young man with the potential to be another Compton: he played all the strokes.” John Murray, perhaps his keenest rival, concurs: “When Jim did make runs he was so quick on his feet he made ‘em bloody quickly for you – that was equally as important as it bought you some time to bowl.”

John Woodcock joins me. “John was the better wicket-keeper – very stylish – but Jim never let England down.” More than that, “If you are the best keeper in the world”, says MJK Smith, “and you don’t know which end of the bat to pick up you won’t be the most valuable man in the Test team……You would have worried about Knott batting higher than seven, but you would have been happy to see Jim going in a bit higher.”

“You need your keeper to make runs,” says Boycott, a shrewd and demanding critic, “and he didn’t drop many.” For CMJ, Jim was “a much under-rated ‘keeper and quick, perky, smart, aggressive, fluent, entertaining and a beautiful driver.” Jim learnt much from Godfrey Evans, who believes “that if he had had the opportunity to keep regularly to top-class spin bowling he could have been a truly outstanding ‘keeper. His greatest qualities were his footwork against spin bowling – he was always able to get to the pitch of the ball and smother spin – and his delicate cuts and glides which were responsible for over 50 per cent of his runs off fast bowling.”

“Nobody in the English game”, says Peter Graves, “had seen a player put their left foot outside leg stump and hit it for six over extra cover” – but as David Allen reminds me, “He had this lovely grip at the top of the bat and he was so well-balanced – the sign of the great players. He was also, apart from Colin Bland, not far off from being the best cover-point in the world – he was certainly the best cover-point in the Championship. England class – no doubt about that whatsoever.”

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Thewisdencricketer.com reader Steve Jones is the fifth winner of our My Favourite Cricketer competition for his entry on Warwickshire batsman Andy Lloyd

Andy Lloyd never had much luck. In fact, my A level Physics exam encompassed the whole of his Test career. Just after noon, I raced home to see how my hero’s first Test was going. On seeing that Andy was 10* retired hurt, I felt a sense of relief. At least he’s not out, I thought.

Down, but not out. It soon transpired that Andy wouldn’t be returning that afternoon, or even that summer. He had stooped into a short ball from Malcolm Marshall, and was struck on the temple, permanently affecting his vision. At least he has an average of infinity, I tried to comfort myself.

Andy’s next game was nearly a year later, and he returned in style – bravely scoring 150 for Warwickshire on the same Edgbaston pitch where he had been poleaxed the previous June. However, the England opportunity had gone forever (Lloyd remains the only Test match opening batsman never to have been dismissed).

He had first come to my notice in a televised Sunday League game in the late 70s – an appearance unfortunately notable solely for a dropped dolly.

By 1980, he was an established member of the team that claimed the John Player League title. The next few years were painful for Warwickshire supporters as our weak and ageing attack, and a lack of athleticism in the field saw mammoth totals from Lloyd, Kallicharran, Amiss, Humpage and the Smith brothers frequently exceeded by the opposition.

Two years went by without a Championship win. Embarrassing performances in two one-day finals did little to alleviate the pain, and when 44-year-old Norman Gifford was appointed captain following the retirement of Bob Willis, there seemed little hope of an exciting future. At least Andy was appointed vice-captain, and the seeds of the following decade’s triumphs were being sown.

He succeeded Gifford as captain in 1988, and a young, exciting team began to emerge. Warwickshire reached Lord’s in 1989 after slaughtering Worcestershire in a semi-final at a packed Edgbaston. Champions Worcestershire’s superstars were skittled by an attack featuring Donald, Small, Reeve, Munton and the Smiths. Suddenly, this was a very different Warwickshire.

Far from the capitulation of the two previous finals, a fearless young side overcame Mike Gatting’s Middlesex, with Neil Smith’s last-over six becoming part of Warwickshire folklore. Fairground Attraction’s ‘Perfect’ boomed out of the Warwickshire dressing room, aptly encapsulating Andy’s finest hour.

Two years later, Warwickshire were runaway leaders in the County Championship as the season entered September, yet poor weather and some ‘freak’ Essex victories would conspire to deny Andy and Warwickshire at the final hurdle.

At the end of 1992, injuries forced Andy into retirement, where he combined radio punditry and corporate hospitality with serving Warwickshire. His pride in Warwickshire’s dominance over the next three years, with six trophies and two runners-up places, must have been tempered by a longing for greater involvement, but compensated by the knowledge that he had left a wonderful legacy.

Andy became chairman of Warwickshire’s Cricket Committee in 2000, again presiding over an era of sustained progress. The last ever Benson and Hedges Cup was claimed in 2002, followed by the undefeated Bears Championship success in 2004.

However Andy’s bad luck was to strike again, as bankruptcy forced him to resign as chairman of the cricket committee in 2004.

It seemed a fitting end to a career dogged by misfortune.

Steve Jones wins a year’s free subscription to The Wisden Cricketer

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Thewisdencricketer.com reader Paul Eade is the fourth winner of our My Favourite Cricketer competition for his entry on Lancashire batsman Frank Hayes

Frank Hayes was destined to be my favourite cricketer. In 1973, I discovered cricket. Hayes was the man who stood out from the crowd.

Nowadays, a player of his appearance would not get a second glance: Hayes had long blond hair. His favourite band was Pentangle. Hardly revolutionary stuff but this was several years before any English cricketer even dared sport an earring, yet alone a green Mohican.

Sure, some of the England team of 1973 looked worthy of worship – but only in a square-jawed-World-War-Two-RAF-pilot way. I needed a favourite with a touch of rebellion about him. Then I discovered that Hayes played for Lancashire, who, with me being born and living in Scarborough, were supposed to be “the enemy”. It had to be Hayes.

Hayes made 106 not out on his Test debut against the West Indies at The Oval that summer. My abiding memory is of him standing – capless of course – at solitary slip on the sun-bleached Lord’s turf while Rohan Kanhai, Garry Sobers and Bernard Julien batted for what seemed like a week (it was actually less than two days but they did make 652).

What followed taught me plenty: I had to come to terms with frequent disappointment and frustration.

He was an automatic choice for the 1973-74 tour to the West Indies. It wasn’t a happy experience. Nevertheless, England, against all the odds, squared the series by 26 runs in the fifth Test at Port-of-Spain, mainly thanks to Tony Greig’s 13 wickets in the match. Hayes made 24 and 0 but the figures do not tell the whole story. His first innings score was made over two hours while almost passing out from a chronic stomach complaint.

Surely, Hayes had done enough to warrant selection against India the following summer. And when he stroked a career-best 187 against the tourists at Old Trafford he was a shoo-in for the first Test, on his home ground. No. To rub salt into the wound, England’s batsman scored at will against a terribly weak Indian attack.

But there was one bright spot. By 1974 my parents trusted me enough to go to the cricket at Scarborough on my own. Lancashire were one of the visitors to the Festival. I didn’t own an autograph book – just a blank page headed “Autographs” in a cricket magazine. Behind the pavilion at Scarborough a staircase led to the club offices – a prime place to catch the players on their own. I was there at 10am – just me and one other kid. Footsteps on the stairs. It was Hayes. I was speechless and just able to summon enough movement in my arms to hold out my page like a silent offering. Hayes signed for me and the kid. He didn’t sign another all day. I still have the signature, cut out and pasted into my autograph book.

Overlooked for the Ashes in 1975, Hayes got one last England chance against the ferocious West Indies pace attack of 1976. He made nought and 18 in a mauling at Old Trafford before moving on to the fourth Test at Headingley – for which I had tickets for the fourth day. The scheduling went to plan. Hayes, made seven in the first innings, came out to bat in the second innings with the score at 5 for 1 as England chased 260 to get back into the series. He struggled helplessly for 10 balls before Viv Richards caught him off Andy Roberts for a duck. “That’s the end of his Test career,” was all I could whisper to my friend. England lost by 55 runs and the rest of the summer was a write-off.

His county career burned on for another nine years, with three seasons as Lancashire captain. The highlight came when he hit Malcolm Nash for 34 off an over (6, 4, 6, 6, 6, 6) against Glamorgan at Swansea in 1977. In a way, that summed up Hayes. It was explosive batting – but with one more six he would be remembered as the man who matched Sobers.

Paul Eade, captain of Guttsta Wicked Cricket Club in Sweden, wins a year’s free subscription to The Wisden Cricketer

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Photograph by Patrick Eagar

TWC.com reader Damith Samarakoon is the third winner of our My Favourite Cricketer competition for his entry on Steve Waugh

Coming from Sri Lanka, it was unimaginable that you lowered yourself to say something positive about the Australians. You would be shunned, sent to the corner and be cast aside like a black sheep.

So it was with great care that I developed my fondness for Steve Waugh. I had to praise him at a distance and in dark alleys where other like-minded ‘traitors’ discussed the Australians.

My interest in Steve was born during the 94-95 Ashes, a strangely unsuccessful series when compared to his later works, but the seed had been sowed.

There were days when I wished the ‘new’ Steve would play like his old self: pulling, driving, slashing bowlers to all parts. Then he would deliver something like Old Trafford in ‘97. He scored centuries in a game Australia needed to win – nearly half the team runs in the first innings and a century in the second with an injury to his hand. You just marvelled at this batting genius.

That was the new Waugh. Scoring runs when it mattered, when his team needed it the most. It was as if he willed himself to a century. It was ugly, it was uncomfortable but there he was, moving across the crease to nudge one to the leg-side, angling one down to third man, all the while scoring runs and putting Australia back in pole position.

However, my most enduring memory of Waugh’s career is not a great match-saving century or those inspirational balls-to-the-walls moments he was known for, but of a single delivery in an ODI.

Steve had altogether stopped bowling in the 90s due to his back problems, so for Mark Taylor, that captain genius, to turn to him meant that it was indeed the last throw of the dice. The great players save their best for when the task seems beyond the call of a mere mortal cricketer. Steve was no different.

The 1996 World Cup semi-final was an opportune time for such a performance.

Ironically, this was a match that all Sri Lankans wanted Australia to win. Having won the first semi a day earlier, all of Sri Lanka wanted to face the Australians in the final. A huge wave of national angst towards the Aussies welled into one final chance to humiliate them on the world stage. It was an opportunity to avenge all the wrong Australia had done to Murali and the embarrassment caused by their not visiting Sri Lanka for their group match.

After collapsing to eight for three Australia had stammered past 200 and the Windies were well on their way to a memorable win. Chasing the ghosts of the 80s, Lara and Chanderpaul carried the hopes of the tiny islands. Lara in particular looked sublime, moving easily to 45. With no options left Taylor threw the ball to Waugh, and he picked up Lara from around the wicket with a ball that came in on the angle and left him slightly to clean-bowl him. It was one of those bits of cricketing genius that makes a life-long impression on a kid like me.

I enjoyed watching him because he played cricket as I thought it should be. Test cricket is a hard, brutal, street fight, whether the ball’s flying by your nose at Perth or spinning past your body in India. It was to be played by men and there was no place for softies.

And Steve Waugh was as hard as they came. Tempered under Border and fine-tuned under Taylor, he was a breed of cricketer that is almost extinct in the modern game.

Damith Samarakoon, a Sri Lankan blogger at www.theflyslip.net, wins a year’s free subscription to The Wisden Cricketer

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TWC.com reader Alex Fensome is the second winner of our My Favourite Cricketer competition for his entry on Zimbabwe spinner Ray Price

I can’t remember exactly when I became infatuated with Zimbabwean cricket. It was a while back. They are all heroes to me, from Flower and Streak through to blokes who never even wore the falcon. They played in places called Matabeleland and Kadoma, Kwekwe and Chimanimani. They were tough men who shot animals and attended boarding schools and despite never being able to match the rest of the cricket world man-for-man they never gave up. They hated losing, even if they lost more often than not. For me one player more than any other typifies them.

Ray Price should never have played international cricket. He is partially deaf, caused by meningitis caught as a premature baby which he beat the odds to survive. The operation he had at six to restore his hearing affected his coordination so badly it took years of effort to reach even a normal level. Yet he became an international cricketer, and a good one, a miser from Mashonaland. As a dyspraxic, knowing someone had faced a worse coordination-affecting condition- far worse- gave me new hope. He inspired me to work harder at cricket, to never give up, to always try to play the game I loved. I followed his career unstintingly; he became my hero, a human counterpart to Andy Flower’s astronomically distant feats.

It helped that he was a lot of fun to watch bowling. Any Price spell is full of ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’, theatrical gestures, laughter, glares, perplexed looks as one of his stratagems fails to defeat his foe. He is a good bowler. But he could make himself out a genius. As the nation plunged into the abyss and all hopes for the future of the sport there disappeared, he raged against the dying of Zimbabwe’s light as much, in his way, as Flower did. He still does even now, taking 4-22 and hitting 24* to scramble a victory over Bangladesh, and continually tying down the best in one-sided contests in front of sparse crowds . He once said he hated to lose and didn’t like drawing; you can tell in everything he does. And like most of his countrymen, he never, ever gives up until it’s all over. They still haven’t given up even though hope seems to diminish with every passing day.

Ray’s finest hour was typical of Zimbabwe. It was 2003, the first Test against the West Indies, and a declining Zimbabwe had matched their opponents over four days in the shadow of Mugabe’s palace. Left with a day to bowl the Windies out, Ray twirled away almost without relief to take four wickets (he had taken six in the first innings), his celebrations mounting; ever more determined to prove the doubters wrong and show them Zimbabwe could still hack it.

As the sun began to set on the beautiful old ground, he took the ninth wicket. But Zimbabwe would pay a cruel penalty for a freak accident; on the third morning, a ball had dribbled under the roller as Robin Brown prepared the pitch, costing two hours of play. In failing light Heath Streak was forced to bowl the unthreatening Trevor Gripper, and no matter what Ray did he couldn’t break through at the other end. The Windies tail survived. God knows how Zimbabwe felt walking off that pitch. John Ward wrote at the time that they “paid the penalty for living in a country where nothing ever seems to go right”. For his part, Ray said he would have traded all ten of his wickets just to take the last one. I didn’t need to read that to know it.

Alex Fensome wins a year’s free subscription to The Wisden Cricketer

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Mark Shuttleworth is the first winner of our My Favourite Cricketer competition for his entry on Neil Fairbother

Cricket bit me when a friend of a friend gave me the Observer’s Book of Cricket. I was about 10 years old and devoured every page. The table of Top Test runscorers included Neil Harvey, a name that stuck in my mind.

Fast forward a few years and the Playboy, sorry, Playfair annual had grabbed my attention. Scanning the Lancashire listings I stumbled across a young player. Neil Harvey Fairbrother. I could feel the pull. LHB; LM; One game; did not bat. But I felt I knew him already.

LHB. Those three letters placed him perfectly in a side already containing lefties Fowler, Lloyd (D) and Lloyd (CH), Abrahams and Jeffries. I followed his progress and felt for him when stranded on 94 by a declaration in his maiden innings. And with three balls of the over remaining.

Soon the centuries began to flow and Test selection was talked about. How fitting that he should receive his call up for a Test on his home ground; how cruel that he should score a duck, called upon to bat when a nightwatchman was needed. I still haven’t forgiven Mike Gatting. And nor have many others.

1990 was his annus mirabilis. A batting average of 80 and that 366 at the Oval – one day containing a century in each session. The abiding memory came on May 30, as Lancashire played Surrey in the B&H Quarter Final. Surrey had a new speedster in their ranks, an unknown of the name Waqar Younis. Harvey cut, drove and strode down the wicket to him, scoring 61 not out from 29 balls. He did all this without a helmet, his quiff never moving out of shape. Breathtaking, it was.

I never did see Harv score a century. Does it matter? Probably not. I know that he gave his all to the cause, creating runs for the player at the other end. Ten Lord’s finals and a World Cup one as well. Not bad for little ‘un.

My last memory of him on the field was to see him carried off, having torn muscles at Lytham. It was sad to see him leave the field, but warming to hear the tales recounted over the rest of the day.

Few are born and given a name at birth that sets out their future path. So thank you Neil Harvey of Australia, for without you we would not have had our Neil Harvey Fairbrother.

Mark Shuttleworth wins a year’s free subscription to The Wisden Cricketer

To enter submit no more than 600 words on your favourite cricketer to twc@wisdencricketer.com, subject line ‘favourite’

Every month TWC publishes a My Favourite Cricketer by a different established writer. Recent submissions have included DJ Taylor, John Inverdale and Simon Hattenstone, and now on TWC.com we are giving you the chance to tell us your own memories and win a free subscription to the magazine in the bargain. Submit no more than 600 words to twc@wisdencricketer.com (subject line: favourite) and we’ll publish the best ones in January. Our web-editor Sam Collins has had a go below, and we’re sure you can do better than him, so get writing.

You can’t control your first loves. Gazza, Lineker and consequently Spurs post Italia ’90. Mark Ramprakash – England against the Windies at Edgbaston in ’91. I had played cricket before, but it wasn’t football. I don’t really know what happened that week, but I remember Ramps, and from then on cricket made sense.

He caught my eye straight away – making two stylish 20s as Tony Lewis and Richie Benaud willed him on, infusing their desperation to an eight year old huddled on his grandmother’s living room floor in Scotland. Even then there was an air of tragedy attached. He was too young, too flawless of face, technique and timing. And his eyes, dark and deep and unnervingly intense.

He never knew it, but I did everything with Ramps. I changed to GM with him, netted obsessively with him and struggled against Pakistan with him in ’92. I even had my hair cut like his.

His maiden half-century at The Oval in ‘93 was a great day in both our lives. I had seen my favourite player score runs on my first taste of live cricket and been stung by a wasp. He had scored 64 against Hughes, Warne and Australia.

I felt guilty, but I didn’t go with him to the West Indies in 93-94 – I may have been young, but I wasn’t stupid, and more to the point I didn’t have Sky. They called it the Caribbean Crusade, but Ramps was crucified, hung out to dry at three against the most brutal opening pair in world cricket. I couldn’t see it, but I felt his pain.

I didn’t know it then, but my betrayal was the beginning of the end. I soon moved back to Gray-Nicolls, seduced by the promise of guaranteed runs with Lara’s Scoop 2000. Worse still, I then became a bowler. He sent me a postcard from Perth in ‘95 with 42 and 72 – as if to say ‘See – I can do it against the Aussies, keep believing’, and thanks to TMS I hardly missed a run of his 154 in Bridgetown in 1998, much to the annoyance of my teachers and disruption of my sleep pattern, but things just weren’t the same.

He never kicked-on and by the next year was batting at six, sometimes seven, my protestations sounding more hollow by the day as Hussain and co. grabbed hundreds and respect at the top of the order. Solid 70s and effective marshalling of the tail had not been part of the bargain in ’91.

When he made his final Test century in 2001 – 133, again against Australia, again at The Oval– we weren’t even talking, his ridiculous stumping at Trent Bridge had seen to that.

Our paths would finally cross in Wellington the following year, where time the healer had me considering reconcilitation. I was travelling and watching, he was playing, and failing. He was on the outfield, stalking off after the warm-down when I approached him.

“Mark, er… Mr Ramprakash… could I have a ph…”.

“Fuck off”.

Closure.

Sam Collins is website editor of thewisdencricketer.com