Quantum leap

Mark Ramprakash thrived on Strictly Come Dancing © BBC

Mark Ramprakash looks down from the top of the stairs and gives a smile. Dazzling in an all-white outfit, he trips lightly down the steps and, if it was not for the morning traffic down Harleyford Road, I swear you would hear a band start up in the background and an unseen voice announce: "Will Mark Ramprakash and his partner take to the floor ... "

It is three months since Ramprakash won the BBC's flagship light-entertainment programme, Strictly Come Dancing. On a cold, overcast March day we stand shivering in front of The Oval's Bedser Stand. Surrey have just returned from their pre-season trip to India and most of the players, Ramprakash included, are nursing sensitive stomachs. His face is disappearing under a two-day stubble. Fielding practice will be a numb-fingered affair; then it is a long net session. Goodbye reality TV. Hello reality.

This will be his 21st county season; he has just signed with Surrey for two more beyond that, which will take him to his 40th birthday. He has won the Championship with two different counties and has lifted every domestic one-day trophy. He has played 52 Tests and never expects to play another. What remains to motivate him in county cricket?

Enjoyment, he says, is one factor. "Also, you're a long time retired and I've got to make the most of the years remaining." Then there is an admission that probably trumps both. "I didn't achieve as much as I would have liked at international level, so I'm striving to do as well as I can to make up for that." Last year surely bridged that gap. Ramprakash had, by anyone's calculation, the perfect year: 2278 first-class runs, an average of 103.54, promotion for his club and the PCA Player-of-the-Year award.

The year before, an Australian coach, Mark O'Neill, had suggested a small technical change - making his trigger movement a touch earlier. It had felt uncomfortable and Ramprakash had left it aside. When he revisited it at the start of 2006 it finally felt right. Then everything felt right. It was as if 20 years of practice were suddenly culminating in one virtuoso performance.

"All the experience played a part," says Ramprakash. "I felt very relaxed at the crease, it was a very good summer, the pitches were very good and I was able to cash in on bits of luck here and there." Dropped catches, playing and missing - none mattered, because nothing fazed him. "I had the experience to say, 'OK, don't worry about that. Just hang on.'"

Why do sportsmen do so well on reality television? Perhaps it is mere competitive instinct. Kyran Bracken's fearless display to win Dancing on Ice proves that rugby players will risk serious injury in pursuit of anything silver and trophy-shaped. But perhaps it is also because they, more than many other so-called celebrities, are able to surprise themselves and us.

And those are the transformations that viewers love. Phil Tufnell, a man who has annoyed so many England captains, turns out to be a great team player when you stick him in a jungle. No one could have guessed that Darren Gough's chunky body had such rhythm in it. (Mark Butcher, Ramprakash's captain, is the exception; the ardent musician came only third in the singing competition, Just the Two of Us.)

For those of us who have watched Ramprakash the cricketer, there was no surprise at his elegance on the dance floor. The panel praised his balance; we compared his poise at the crease. Craig Revel Horwood admired his "lines" - the graceful shapes he made with his body - and we smiled knowingly.

We knew them already, forming the perfect arc of a cover-drive. When his salsa sent another judge, Arlene Phillips, into hot flushes, we scoffed. She was not, after all, the first to shiver at this man's footwork.

What was not expected was for Ramprakash to win. We had followed his England career throughout its 11 intermittent, often infuriating years. We had watched him fluff the big occasion too many times.

And in the first two weeks of Strictly we saw the signs: the self-consciousness in training; the self-doubt in interviews; the nerves as he waited in the wings. "I found it very difficult to dance in front of a mirror, in front of a camera crew," he says now. "Performing on Saturdays was nerve-racking. When they announce your name it's like the fall of a wicket in a Test match - the wicket goes and there's the roar of the crowd. And then it's you."

Over the course of 12 weeks, however, Ramprakash proved us wrong. He showed, for one, that he did not have to take things so seriously any more. "Making a bit of a fool of yourself, it's not something I particularly take to," he says. "But once you got into the dance I found that you had no option. If you didn't commit to it, it would be so disappointing. Everyone wants you to have a go and be prepared to laugh at yourself."

Ramprakash flicks to leg © Martin Williamson

The young Ramprakash was not so light-hearted. The son of a Guyanese father and an Irish mother, he grew up in Hertfordshire and from an early age cricket was allconsuming.

He was a Middlesex Colt at nine; he made his first-class debut for the club at 17. He averaged more than 50 in 14 years of first-class cricket with Middlesex and in 1997 he was made captain. Even then he struggled to take pleasure in his success. "I was so immersed in the game that I couldn't see the big picture," says Ramprakash. "During the mid to late 1990s I didn't enjoy the game as much as I should have."

These were his turbulent England years, stymied by nerves, fickle selectors and outlandish dressing-room outbursts at odds with his introverted nature. What was his lowest point? "Oh God, I've had so many," he says, shaking his head. "It's hard to narrow it down. I've had a lot of very difficult times." He settles on his performances against West Indies at Lord's in 1995 and 2000 - 0, 0, 0, 2.

And of course there was the trouble at Middlesex, where captain Ramprakash clashed with the coaches. "You need a management structure where everyone knows their job description," he says delicately, "and Middlesex didn't really have that." In 2001 he moved to Surrey. His home county sent him on his way with all the good grace of Arsène Wenger selling Ashley Cole to Chelsea.

For Ramprakash the drive from north to south London has been one of the best strokes of his career. "Since I moved to Surrey I've enjoyed playing the game," he says. "People feel that there's a change in me. I've become a better player and a more relaxed personality." He has started talking to umpires at the non-striker's end to help him relax more.

Does he still throw his bat around the dressing room? "Well, I do, on the odd occasion," he admits. "And I'm lucky because my team-mates are very tolerant of that."

I wonder if county bowling has got easier to face. "When I started the game," says Ramprakash, "every team had a 90mph bowler and that tends to make things happen. Even if they don't pick up wickets, the bowlers at the other end might pick up wickets because it does something to the psyche of the batting side. It can ruffle a few, and others enjoy it. That lifted the standard of county cricket immensely. If you look at the county set-up now, I'm struggling to think of anyone who would be bowling at that pace.

"That's not to say you can't have bowlers bowling at 82mph who are very good bowlers. The difference is you feel that, if you can get past the new ball, past the first 25 overs, you have a great opportunity of converting that start into a big score. In days gone by they had very good bowlers who could get you out even when you were set.

"What with laws, protective equipment, the volume of international cricket and pitches, the balance of the game, which is so important, has swung too much towards the batsmen."

Perhaps, also, being in an ambitious, starry Surrey side has helped deflect some of the crippling self-scrutiny that once inhibited him? Fatherhood certainly has. "It changes life," he says. "Parenthood makes you think of others. Before I've been accused of being very focused on my cricket all the time but, when you go home and you've got children around, you have to give to them."

It is an awkward subject, however; his voice becomes quieter and he looks away. His wife, Vandana, and his nine-year-old daughter Cara were at every one of his Strictly Come Dancing performances (his five-year-old, Anya, was too young to sit still that long).

Two weeks before the series finale a tabloid newspaper revealed that Ramprakash had had a long extra-marital affair that ended only just before filming began. Those of us who had seen his embarrassment at dancing the overtly sexual rumba, and thought it a charming expression of his fidelity, now wondered if that was the week that the storm had broken in the Ramprakash household.

Ramprakash issued a contrite apology and the show supported him, portraying him as a family man at every opportunity. Even Arlene seemed to tone down her swooning. But how did it affect Ramprakash himself? There is a long pause; his eyes flicker away. He says, tangentially, that he does not regret doing the show and that it was a "once-in-a-lifetime" experience. "When I agreed to do Strictly I had no idea of the profile of the show," he continues. "I didn't realise how popular it was, so I didn't realise with that sort of publicity suddenly you're thrust into the mainstream ..." He trails off.

Last year Darren Gough, the 2005 Strictly Come Dancing champion, was very keen to make it known that he was still available for England. So does the idea of playing international cricket still hold any appeal for Ramprakash? "It doesn't even cross my mind," he says.

He does, however, follow the team closely. "You look at the England side and you say, 'Where is the spirit of 2005? Where has it gone?' It must be a massive concern for Duncan Fletcher that his side were not only beaten in Australia but looked to be a beaten side." Is this a matter for Fletcher or for his successor? "I have no idea," he says, "but I do think that [the Academy director] Peter Moores is a very good coach."

In the early stages of the World Cup he thinks England have "been solid without being spectacular and that's the nature of the side". Who would he like to see in the squad? "Ryan Sidebottom has a very consistent line and length," says Ramprakash.

"I looked at the England one-day side during the winter and I thought, hold on a minute, our bowlers are going all round the park, and Duncan Fletcher always seems to want to dip into the Academy. One-day cricket is a very harsh environment for a young bowler and there were times when he could have chosen players who were slightly older, consistent performers."

Ramprakash himself has just passed his level-four coaching course, which qualifies him to coach at first-class level. What kind of coach would he be? "I'd like to think my man management would be to be tolerant to players." So he would not mind a tearaway throwing his bat around, then? "I look at young players now and often feel that in a way I wouldn't mind seeing a bit of that. It shows a will to win."

He would also, he says, take some tips from his Strictly Come Dancing partner, Karen Hardy. "She was an energetic, enthusiastic person who came to every session wanting me to improve. Sometimes we can get jaded and forget about the enjoyment of the game; it can get too technical as well. Her style of coaching is something that we should have in cricket."

This invites one final, delicate question: Middlesex or Surrey? He frowns back. "No, no, I can't choose between the two, obviously," he says, beginning a long defence of his Middlesex record. "I'm immensely proud of my contribution to the club," he concludes, "and I wish Middlesex supporters would remember that when they think about me."

There are some things, it seems, that Ramprakash will still not laugh about.