Summary
A public school captain nicknamed Lord Brocket. An Essex boy who's just got three Test tons in a row. Can this disparate pair wrest the Ashes from Australia? Here Ravi opens the batting...
The time is just after two in the afternoon and I'm pacing up and down the gravel drive of a smart country hotel near the Essex cricket ground in Chelmsford when my mobile rings: 'Hi - it's Ravi Bopara. Sorry I'm a bit late, but just to let you know I think I'm about a mile away.' Most sports stars wouldn't think twice about keeping an interviewer waiting, but Bopara is new to his fame and touchingly gauche at times, as I discover. He pulls up merely two minutes late in his chunky Pounds 30,000 V6 Volkswagen Touareg (standard issue for all of the England cricket team and, he later tells me enthusiastically, replaced with a brand new one every three months). The car stops and out bounds a 24-year-old batsman upon whose broad shoulders rest many an Englishman's hopes of winning back the Ashes this summer.See the full content of this document
Extract
We're a Class Apart From the Aussies
Bopara has just driven from the ground where later this evening he will smash two consecutive sixes off the fearsome South African fast bowler Andre Nel, to reach yet another half-century and single- handedly win Essex their Twenty20 game against Surrey.
Yet the golden boy of English cricket has never done a proper photo shoot before. His transition from international cricketing failure to stunning success has been so swift and comprehensive, it seems that he and the publicity mac...See the full content of this document
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