Players

Ravi Bopara

Bopara worked his way through the youth ranks at Essex, carrying with him a reputation as a talented strokemaker.

He made his county debut in 2002, playing three times in the County Championship, and represented England Under-19s in the 2004 World Cup in Bangladesh.

The 2005 season saw Bopara score his maiden championship hundred - as well as a century against the touring Australians - and win his county cap, awarded to him on the day that Essex were presented with the National League trophy.

Bopara was named in the ECB National Academy intake during the 2005-06 winter, and, after the senior squad was struck by injury, he was added to the England A squad which were touring the West Indies.

He was also part of the England A side that played Sri Lanka and Pakistan in the summer of 2006, a season that brought Bopara 806 championship runs. He also averaged more than 40 in the Friends Provident Trophy and NatWest Pro40.

That earned Bopara a place in England’s preliminary squad for the 2006 Champions Trophy and, after impressing during the Academy trip to Perth during the Ashes series, he made his one-day international debut against Australia at Sydney in place of the injured Kevin Pietersen.

Bopara’s stock rose higher still during the 2007 World Cup, when he hit a valiant half-century to carry England to the brink of an unlikely victory against Sri Lanka, and he provided further evidence of his remarkable temperament during an unbroken 99-run stand with Stuart Broad that helped England beat West Indies by three wickets in the fourth one-day international at Old Trafford later that summer.

Bopara's double hundred in the quarter-final helped Essex to clinch the FP Trophy in 2008

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Although a broken thumb kept Bopara out of the inaugural World Twenty20 in South Africa, his one-day performances in Sri Lanka that winter earned him a place in the Test side on the same tour.

He managed just 42 runs in five innings, however, and was dropped after making a pair in the third Test in Galle.

Bopara sparkled on the domestic circuit in 2008. He began the season with two centuries, a 99 plus three further fifties in his first seven innings. However, his finest innings was undoubtably 201 not out from 138 deliveries against Leicestershire in the Friends Provident Trophy quarter-final.

He won a place in the Test squad - without making the final XI - for the last Test of the summer against South Africa.

His tally of 1,162 championship runs at an average of 64 earned him the Young Cricketer of the Year award, and, having helped Essex win the Friends Provident Trophy and NatWest Pro40 Division Two, he was awarded an incremental contract by the ECB and named in the England squad for the Stanford Super Series and the one-day series in India.

He played in the inaugural Stanford Super Series and played in the one-day series against India, returning home early with the squad following the Mumbai terror attacks.

Then, following an injury to Andrew Flintoff on England's tour of the West Indies, Bopara stepped in to record his maiden Test century with a marvellous 104 in Barbados.

He also played in all five one-day matches in the Caribbean as England claimed the series 3-2.

Bopara celebrates his maiden Test hundred by mimicking Usain Bolt in Barbados

Following a successful stint in the IPL with Kings XI Punjab, Bopara excelled in the two home Tests against West Indies - following up his century in Barbados with 143 at Lord's and 108 at Chester-le-Street.

In doing so, he became the fifth English batsman to record three consecutive Test hundreds, after Herbert Sutcliffe, Denis Compton, Geoff Boycott and Graham Gooch.

Bopara helped England to victory in the subsequent one-day series and played in the World Twenty20 in June.

He struggled in the Ashes, batting at three, and made way for the decider at the Brit Oval.