Vaughan versus Ramprakash

Ramprakash needs to create more than a few ripples

BBC Sport Online's Oliver Brett looks at two men who could be competing for the number five spot in England's Test team.

No wonder Mark Ramprakash was to be seen on Thursday peering hopefully at the rain-laden clouds of Otago.

Perhaps more than anyone else, he needs three days of bright weather when England's first warm-up game of two begins on Saturday as the tourists build towards the first Test.

The player whose move from Middlesex to Surrey precipitated an unlikely return to the England fold last summer, has held his own since coming back into the Test arena.

Ramprakash cemented his rehabilitation with a punchy century at the Oval in the final Ashes Test in August.

  Test records

Ramprakash: Age: 32, Tests: 49, Highest score: 154, Average: 28.06, with two centuries

Vaughan: Age: 27, Tests: 13, Highest score: 120, Average: 33.95, with one century

When the feet are moving and when his bright eye picks the length early, Ramprakash - with the benefit of experience - is a joy to behold.

He will never have a perfect technique against the very best pace bowling in the world, but which of the New Zealand seamers can be bracketed with the world's finest?

If ever there was a moment for the 32-year-old to have a once-in-a-lifetime tour - sort of two centuries, two fifties type of thing - now is the moment.

And yet there is Michael Vaughan to consider - an altogether different model of cricketer.

Bizarre

The Yorkshireman who has an unhappy record of all-too-frequent injuries and bizarre dismissals nevertheless has 'a touch of class' about him.

That is the phrase Nasser Hussain used when recalling him for the critical one-day match at Auckland, when his 59 did much to help England win the game and take the series into a decider.

Michael Vaughan probably just has the nod

However in the same game - in true Vaughan style - he fell awkwardly on his shoulder while fielding, which thereby rules him out of the final match.

Vaughan's first Test century, a fine innings of 120, came in the first match against Pakistan.

It was a match which England lost following a second innings capitulation amid some unsually error-prone umpiring from David Shepherd.

In a selfless act, Hussain had decided to drop himself a place in the order to give Vaughan the vital number three slot for the first Test of that 2001 summer against Pakistan.

Plans ditched

The fact that both Vaughan and number four Graham Thorpe got injured just before the first Ashes Test at Edgbaston soon afterwards then threw an entire toolbox in the works.

After the century against Pakistan, it had seemed only a matter of time before Vaughan replaced Michael Atherton - a player he has modelled himself on - as England's regular Test opener.

But when Mark Butcher and Ramprakash were recalled - as injuries continued to plague England's batsmen - Butcher was the one who had first crack at the opening spot.

The views in New Zealand can be a distraction

And Butcher was also the best batsman that summer - underlining his individual renaissance with one of English cricket's greatest individual peformances of modern times - an unbeaten century in an epic run chase to win the Headingley Test.

All being equal, for the first Test in New Zealand, England will have Marcus Trescothick and Butcher opening, Hussain at three and Thorpe at four.

That leaves Ramprakash and Vaughan fighting for the number five spot if both Andrew Flintoff and Craig White are selected.

The only apparent way Duncan Fletcher can squeeze both Ramprakash and Vaughan in the side would be to drop one of the two all-rounders.

Assuming neither performs markedly better than the other and both all-rounders do play at Christchurch on 13 March in the first Test, Vaughan should be the choice for the future.

In any event, he has a better defensive technique and a better average than Ramprakash.