Born in New South Wales, Ambrose started out at Sussex and made a positive impression - especially with his hard-hitting batting. However, with Matt Prior on the books he realised regular first-team cricket, and importantly keeping opportunities, would be limited and he moved to Warwickshire at the start of the 2006 season. He had a stop-start beginning to life at Edgbaston as injury restricted his early-season chances in 2006, but in the second half of the summer he gave plenty of examples of his batting ability and he blossomed in fine style during 2007. He was so prolific there was talk of him being an outside bet for the Test and one-day sides - but his former team-mate, Prior, got the nod. However, Prior's disappointing tour of Sri Lanka led to his axing in early 2008 and Ambrose was called up as his replacement for England's series against New Zealand. He started promisingly, too; his counterattacking 102 in the second Test in Wellington turned England's fortunes around and helped swing the series their way. Off the pitch, he is a useful guitarist and nicknamed 'freak' due to everything apparently coming naturally to him.