Feb 16, 2012

Amidst all the rightful clamour to proclaim Ali Cook the best pound-for-pound English batsman of his time, his old running mate slipped in under the radar with his own modest statement.

Ravi Bopara made two run-a-ball-ish fifties to graft an extra layer of Essex rock to Cook's granite hundreds. He did what he had to do, which is often the hardest thing of all. It's a push to say his knocks were as significant as Cook's because as England captain in a format in which many have questioned his suitability the stakes are that much higher.

But just as Cook, as ever, was taking hold of those stakes and ramming them where the sun rarely shines, Bopara was gently nudging the English cricket public to suspend their ambivalence and go instead with a kind of cautiously renewed faith.

There was faith in him in the summer of 2009, possibly too much of it, as it turned out. Shunted in at No.3 against Australia on the back of three effortlessly beautiful hundreds against West Indies, he flickered briefly at Lord's, got a couple of dodgy decisions elsewhere and was finally released after four degenerative Tests. England went with Jonathan Trott at The Oval, and that was that.

Bopara wasn't the first and he won't be the last. But it hit him hard. When a batsman fails, it looks bad. When a strokemaker fails, especially a strokemaker with a street-strut, it looks bloody awful. For Bopara, that summer was an almighty bummer, and the following year drifted past in a wave of anti-climax.

But any doubts about his mettle were suspended at the start of the 2011 spring, when he turned down the chance of another run at the IPL to concentrate on grafting away in April for Essex. With Paul Collingwood's Test retirement he'd spied a spot at No.6 and so got his head down in first-class cricket as Eoin Morgan swanned off to India to thrash it about a bit for lots and lots of money. Smart moves both.

It didn't quite work out for Bopara. Despite playing some scintillating innings for Essex, Morgan got the nod at No.6 and he was only drafted in for the final two Tests of the summer in place of the injured Trott to watch on from the balcony as England's top-order made hay against the Indians.

Still, in January he packed his bags for the UAE as England's first reserve – a consolation prize, a backing of sorts – and then spent three weeks counting his credits as others, notably Morgan, mislaid theirs. And now's he's got the gig at No.4 in the ODI side – further backing.

Where it goes now, only time will tell. But Ravi could always play. Wrists, flair, time, an air of youthful studied nonchalance. But there was a problem. In amongst all the beauty and the promise, and perhaps because of it, Bopara, just like early-era Ian Bell, always seemed to be battling the suspicion that here was a great – at least greatly gifted – batsman when what was required was merely a reliably good one. It's like that dismissive old line about the film director Jean-Luc Godard only making great movies when what the public really want are a few good ones.

At the end of it all, it's runs. Just runs. They're all that count. He first came to our attention as a 20-year-old in 2005. That freakish summer saw the touring Australians spend a couple of days in Chelmsford getting the run-around from two young kids. Ravi Bopara – Puppy to his teammates – was one of them, plucking at the heartstrings with 136 of the silkiest, cheekiest runs imaginable.

But Ravi didn't get the girl. Because at the other end, rather less sexily but with the trappings and prospects already preternaturally developed, stood a 21-year-old called Alastair Cook. He made 201.

The Grubber is a weekly feature written by All Out Cricket's editor Phil Walker published each Thursday on www.alloutcricket.com

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