Upstairs Downstairs

There much speculation in the media at the moment that Peter Moores may bring back Mark Ramprakash into the England fold. Have to say I'm pretty neutral on this, if he's good enough to do the job, and form suggests he patently is, then why not. But at the same time, it's hardly a 'step forward' and it's a bit sad that there's no one younger to do the same job.

There's never been any doubt of Ramps' pure talent, always the questions about his mental state and attitude, whereby in less enlightened times he might have been described as 'uppity'. It also makes you think of how badly he was managed by the likes of Bumble.

The potential recall also raises a interesting point.

Ramps has publically attributed much of of his continued form, desire and sharpness to the competitiveness in the County Championship under the new divisional structure. He piled up runs when Surrey were in Division One, continued when they went down, and then carried on again when they came back up last year - responding to the challenge that Division Two runs were 'cheap'.

In the same vein, there were the comments from Justin Langer a recent Grauniad interview. The gnomic one is coming back for a second season at Cidershire, specifically for the challenge of Division 1 cricket. Apparently no lesser authority then Warnie has told him how tough it is.

Which begs the question, If Division One is rapidly becoming the most competitive domestic league in the world, how long will Bopara and Cook stay at Essex all the time they are in Division 2? Along the same lines how long will Monty stay at Northants?

More importantly, how long will any borderline test player stay at a Division 2 county if he feels that he needs to step up a level to improve his game and make the further jump to test status? Stuart Broad has already made the transition - carefully waiting until Notts were certain of promotion before commiting to a move to Trent Bridge. He won't be the last.