From the moment he arrived at Middlesex as a precocious 17-year-old in 1987 and won the man-of-the-match award in the 1988 NatWest Trophy final, he has always been English cricket's 'Special One' writes the Daily Telegraph's Simon Hughes of his former county team-mate Mark Ramprakash.

Viv Richards came up to me in 1994 and said: 'You seem to have just about everything, but there's something missing. I feel you don't quite believe you're good enough to play at this level.'