Mark Ramprakash enjoyed a memorable 2006, topping the run charts and then winning the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing series to propel him from mere former-England-cricket status to celebrity. Now, though, he is ready to hang up the dancing shoes (for now, at least) and pull on the batting boots as he aims for another run-filled campaign with Surrey, back in the first Division. Ahead of the new season, Christopher Martin-Jenkins caught up with him for The Times.

Ramprakash is 37 and the new contract will presumably see him through to retirement and probably to the 13 centuries he needs to become the first batsman since Graeme Hick â.. and only the 25th in all â.. to score a hundred first-class hundreds. His taste of television fame has done nothing to alter his focus on cricket.