Mark Ravindra Ramprakash (born 5 September 1969) is an English former cricketer and cricket coach.
Outside of cricket, Ramprakash won the fourth series of Strictly Come Dancing in 2006. Since 2020, he has been the director of cricket for Harrow School.
Ramprakash was raised in Harrow, the son of a white British mother and Indo-Guyanese father. He attended Gayton High School.
A right-handed batsman, he played for Middlesex at every age level, signing his first professional contract with them at the age of 17. He was selected for England aged 21.
Ramprakash was an English batsman at county level. He maintained a long but intermittent international career.
He became a particularly prolific run scorer when he moved to Surrey in 2001, averaging over 100 runs per innings in two successive seasons (2006 & 2007). He is one of only 25 players in the history of the sport to have scored 100 first-class centuries.
In November 2012, he was announced as the batting coach for the England Lions in India.
In January 2013 he was appointed as batting coach for Middlesex, on a two-year contract.
In November 2014 he was appointed as England's batting coach and served for six years.
He returned to Middlesex as a consultant batting coach in 2022, a role, he has combined with a director of cricket role for Harrow School.
Middlesex elected him as their 26th club president for a two-year term in 2023, succeeding Mike Selvey.
Mark Ramprakash was born in Bushey, Hertfordshire, and is of Indo-Guyanese and English descent. His father, born in British Guiana, was Indo-Guyanese and his mother was English. He attended Gayton High School (now Harrow High School), and then Harrow Weald Sixth Form College. His first local club was Bessborough Cricket Club in Headstone Lane, Harrow where he showed early promise as a fast bowler before concentrating on his batting. He played his first match for Middlesex aged just 17, scoring 63 not out against Yorkshire, and top-scoring with 71 in his second match against Essex at Chelmsford (he was still a sixth-form student at the time).
He scored his maiden first-class century at Headingley against Yorkshire in 1989, and captained the England U-19 team. He came to national prominence when, at the age of 18, he won the man-of-the match award in the 1988 NatWest Trophy Final after his innings of 56 helped Middlesex beat Worcestershire.
During his early days as a professional cricketer, Ramprakash had a reputation as something of a mercurial and stormy character. Nicknamed "Bloodaxe" by Middlesex team-mates for his short temper, Ramprakash's younger days contrasted with the relaxed mellowness of his thirties. However, at times he continued to display the fiery temper that some say prevented him from fully succeeding at international level.
Despite being advised to keep his aggression at bay by teammates, including Graham Gooch and Adam Hollioake he often struggled to control it, resulting in verbal attacks and various dressing room tantrums.
Ramprakash was selected for his first Test match for England against the West Indies at Headingley in 1991. This was the same game in which Graeme Hick also made his England Test debut and, like Hick, he struggled to impress, producing a series of disappointing scores in the 20s - albeit usually spending a lot of time compiling them. It is also fair to say that the 1991 West Indies attack was still the best and fastest in the world as well as some pitches in that 1991 series were not straightforward to bat on - especially Headingley and Edgbaston. Ramprakash (like Hick) at least contributed in the field on his Test debut as England recorded their first victory in a home Test match against the West Indies for 22 years. He played all 6 test matches in 1991 but managed a 0 against the lesser pace of Sri Lanka. He did not play any test matches in 1991/92 in New Zealand and was immediately dropped after another 0 on a feather bed of a pitch at Edgbaston against Pakistan. Recalled for the 4th test of that series, he again failed to distinguish himself. However, his consistent heavy scoring in county cricket meant that he was always on the fringes of selection and considered worthy of a further Test opportunity. Like Hick, England's test opponents in 1991 and 1992 represented the very best bowling attacks of their time (Walsh, Ambrose, Marshall, Patterson, Akram, Younis, Mushtaq). While neither Hick nor Ramprakash had any success, they may be considered unlucky not to have settled in against weaker opponents.
He was recalled to the England team for the final Test of the 1993 Ashes series. With Australia already 4–0 up it was a dead rubber, but he produced his first substantial innings for England by scoring 64 to help the team grab a consolation victory. This booked him a place on the subsequent tour of the West Indies. However, another string of low scores meant he was dropped and out of the selectors' plans. Ramprakash was not selected in the touring party for the 1994–95 Ashes series, but was chosen as vice-captain for the England A tour to India. However, an injury to Graeme Hick meant that he was flown out to play in the final Ashes Test, scoring a useful 72 in the final test at Perth, and ironically, in spite of his initial non-selection, finishing top of the England batting averages for the series. He was in and out of the England team over the next few years, never assured of selection but still scoring very heavily for Middlesex.
A breakthrough of sorts came in the 1997–98 Test series against the West Indies when he scored 154 in the fifth Test in Barbados. It was his first Test century and it earned him regular selection for the England team for the next eighteen months. But he was omitted from the 1999 tour of South Africa and thereafter was in and out of the side again. While he scored a number of fifties against various teams at this time (notably Australia), he only added one more century to his tally – 133 against Australia at The Oval in the 2001 Ashes series. He was not picked again after England's tour of New Zealand in March 2002.