Perhaps not even Kevin Pietersen would have displayed such audacity as did
Ravi Bopara on his Test debut in Kandy last week. With England on the ropes
at lunch on the final day on 125 for five, chasing 350, Bopara told Ian Bell
that if they could stay together until tea, “we’re going to win the game”.
If this sounded fanciful, Bopara had, barely half an hour earlier, driven, cut
and glided Muttiah Muralitharan, the world’s most successful bowler, for
three boundaries in an over. Bopara wasn’t just talking a good game, he was
playing one. “I was timing the ball well and picking Murali in the flight,”
he said later. Of course, things didn’t work out as planned. Four overs into
the afternoon, Bopara, having just had his outside edge passed twice by
Sanath Jayasuriya, fell lbw for 34 to a ball that went straight on, but Bell
and Matthew Prior subsequently thrived sufficiently to suggest that England
might have got close had the top order players given them a better start.
Already in his short career, Bopara, 22, a reformed junk-food addict, has
several times displayed a healthy appetite for the tightest situations. He
nearly stole victory from Sri Lanka at the World Cup in an amazing
partnership with Paul Nixon. He did steal victory from India in a one-dayer
at Old Trafford with Stuart Broad. This British Asian has never been short
of that most un-Anglo-Saxon trait, chutzpah.
Bopara well remembers when he first thought he would be good enough to survive
at cricket’s top level. He had just turned 18 and been chosen for Essex in a
day-nighter against Pakistan at Chelmsford. Essex batted first and Bopara
watched from the balcony as Shoaib Akhtar’s lightning pace gave Essex’s top
order a torrid time.
“I remember laughing at the guys who were batting ahead of me because he was
bowling so quick. To be fair, they weren’t making it look easy. Then,
Goochie [Graham Gooch, the Essex batting coach] pulled me aside and said,
‘Stop laughing. It’s not funny’. Then it was my turn. It was great fun
playing against one of the quickest bowlers in the world. I didn’t think
much about what I was doing and it felt good. I scored 46 from 52 balls and
came away thinking I could definitely play on the international stage. Now
46 doesn’t seem anything, but then it felt big. Afterwards Goochie said,
‘Well played’.”
What was striking about that performance was that Bopara had only recently
returned from a miserable England Under-19 tour of Australia, where he could
barely buy a run. Yet here he was, a few weeks later, back to his cocky
best.
Speaking ahead of practice for today’s second Test in Colombo, Bopara conceded
that he didn’t always have the right attitude. “I guess I didn’t take things
as seriously as I should have,” he said. “I didn’t respect the game as much
as I do now. I thought it might have been an easy ride.
“When I got back from Australia, Goochie asked me what had gone wrong and I
never had an answer. He told me I had to work hard. I never knew what
working hard meant but I know now. Areas of my game were untouched and it
was about finding them and improving them.”
Bopara reckons another key game in his development came for Essex against the
Australians in 2005, when he scored 135 and shared a big stand with his
future England teammate Alastair Cook. “That again made me think I could
play on the international stage and that it was just a matter of getting
there, taking the opportunity and staying there. That’s all I’ve thought
about ever since.” That innings was doubly reassuring as he had only
recently scored his maiden championship hundred after a three-year wait. “It
had been very frustrating,” he said. “It had been doing my head in.”
If Bopara appears unusually driven, it may be because he has had to be. When
he was growing up in Newham, east London, there was no organised cricket at
his primary or secondary schools and he learnt the game on the street with
his elder brother Etinder and their mates. They played with a taped-up
tennis ball and Ravi and Etinder shared a Duncan Fearnley cricket bat bought
for them by their parents.
“I never considered the financial side of my parents,” he recalled. “They
never complained about money and I never really asked for anything. I didn’t
want clothes or computers. All I needed was a pair of trainers, though it
was me who asked for the cricket bat.”
Eventually, with the help of a teacher, Ravi helped conjure up a school
cricket team that went on to win two cups. His father got him enrolled at
the local Clay-hill club and by the age of 12 Ravi had been picked up by
Essex’s youth system. He vividly remembers scoring his first century,
getting to 94 when his team needed seven to win, then hitting a six and a
one.
“I didn’t know what a hundred meant but I knew it was a landmark,” he said.
He started saying that his ambition was to play for England. But at that stage
he wasn’t the greatest physical specimen. While his father worked for a
pharmaceutical company, his mother ran a shop that sold both chips and
sweets – and it was right next door to their house.
“I ate rubbish,” he conceded. “I’d go and pick up packets of crisps, chocolate
or a Coke when I wanted and if I needed some hot food I’d just pop next door
and have some chips. I was a big lad and I remember my Dad saying I was
never going to play for England looking like that. I didn’t believe him, and
it annoyed me, but in the end I took it on board. Within a year the weight
had come off and it’s never come back.”
Even when chosen to play for Essex’s first team while still at school, Ravi’s
parents were anxious he should go to college after finishing his GCSEs. But
he had other ideas. “I wasn’t a fan of studying and wasn’t fussed whether I
passed my GCSEs.
They said I needed to go to college to help me get a job. I spoke to Andy
Flower [now England batting coach, then a teammate at Essex] and told him
what my parents had said, and he agreed.
He told me not to put all my eggs in one basket, but I thought I could make
something out of my cricket, so I ignored him.”
The England and Wales Cricket Board is backing initiatives to promote cricket
in inner-city areas like the one that nurtured Bopara but it is always going
to be a troubled process. Bopara, who has moved out of Newham, listens with
distress to recent reports of gun crime anda fatal stabbing in the area, but
insists he has only fond memories of where he grew up. “I remember once
seeing a guy jumping out of a car and firing a gun at the back of another
car, but for me it was the best place in the world.”
The most alarming news Bopara has received since arriving in Sri Lanka is that
his two rottweilers had been arrested. They got into a neighbour’s garden
and frightened a teenage girl. “The dogs didn’t harm her but the neighbours
complained and the police took them away,” he said. “A note was stuck under
our door but thankfully they are back at home, safe and sound.”
The best news he has had was the captain and coach telling him on the morning
of the Kandy Test that he was in the team. “I was delighted and couldn’t
wait to get out there. I was nervous as in excited, not scared. I couldn’t
wait to find out what Test cricket was all about. Now I’m just hungry for
another game.”
Bopara’s path to the top
- Ravi Bopara, who is 22, was born in London. He is nicknamed Puppy and is a
keen dog owner
MAY 2002 He made his first-class debut for Essex against
Northamptonshire when he was on 17 years and 27 days old
JUNE 2003 Scored 46 from 52 balls and took two for 28 for Essex in a
limited overs day-nighter against Pakistan at Chelmsford. He played in
several matches for the England U19s in 2003 and then the U19 Cricket World
Cup in 2004
SEPTEMBER 2005 Hit 135 and shared in a second-wicket stand of 270 with
Alastair Cook for Essex against Australia. The partnership put both players
in the spotlight and led to their promotion to the England Test side. He
scored 880 first-class runs in the season, including his maiden first-class
century
APRIL 2007 Was man of the match after scoring a run-a-ball maiden
international 50 against Sri Lanka as England lost a World Cup match by two
runs
AUGUST 2007 Shared an eighth-wicket stand of 99 with Stuart Broad to
pull off an unlikely two-wicket win for England against India in one-dayer
at Old Trafford n He has a first-class average of 38.55 and has also taken
61 wickets in 62 matches
