[2] Ostler made a low-key entry into Warwickshire's first team, but in his third match in 1990 his steadiness, batting at No 8, helped his side to take a somewhat contrived victory over Derbyshire after Derbyshire has forfeited their entire second innings; he scored 42 not out to seal the win after a late collapse.
[4] That 1991 season set the pattern for the next four years of Ostler's cricket career: he was a consistent if rarely flamboyant scorer and was ever-present in Warwickshire's middle order in both first-class and List A matches.
[10] Ostler's cricket career then went into a severe decline across the rest of the 1990s to the point where, in 1998, he played in only six first-class matches for Warwickshire, scoring just 173 runs, of which 133 came in a single unbeaten innings against the less-than-arduous bowling of Oxford University.
[1] He was heading for similar success in 2001, averaging 47.27 with the bat and having taken 22 catches in just 10 first-class matches, when his season came to an abrupt end with an elbow injury in the July fixture against Derbyshire.
[1] Earlier in the 2001 season he had recorded his highest one-day cricket score with an unbeaten innings of 134 against Gloucestershire.