Mark Ramprakash receives tributes from across cricket world as he hangs up his cricket bat for good It's sad to see him hang up his bat, but I'm confident that he will be successful in whatever he moves into. He comes across as the type of character who has the desire to do well in whatever he does. What is striking about him is the hunger and work ethic throughout his career. He has been an exceptional role model for all young cricketers. Mike Gatting: You don't put 18 year-olds into a Lord's final as Middlesex did with Mark against Worcestershire in 1988 unless you think they are special, and Mark was a special talent. He could sometimes be feisty but he was very passionate about the game and very loyal to the clubs he played for and to people. He was a thorough professional and he always wanted the teams he played for to do well. He was someone you could use as a mentor for young cricketers to demonstrate how you should practice and play. Perhaps he didn't have the England shirt for as long as he would have liked. He was in and out of the side and he didn't quite manage to play with the freedom and class that he showed throughout his county career. He will probably be the last player to score 100 first-class centuries because of the amount of cricket that is played these days. Unless I come out of retirement and score six hundreds against the universities, of course. Gus Fraser Mark has been a magnificent player. He and Graeme Hick have been England's most prolific county cricketers of recent times but both of them didn't quite make the same impression in Test cricket that we imagined they would. But to score 100 hundreds is a remarkable achievement and I'm sure that he will be the last one to do that. For 95 per cent of the time he was quiet and charming. He was someone who sat around and joined in dressing room conversations occasionally. But he did have a temper and when he blew, he blew. When he first came into the Middlesex set-up there was talk of him being a child prodigy and the next Mike Gatting. You could see from the purity of his play that he was a prodigious talent and someone special. It took him a little time to get himself completely sorted at county level but he always had that touch of class and he never got ruffled by fast bowling.