Randall first came to note as a cover fielder, as one-day cricket forced fielding standards to improve. His run out of Gordon Greenidge in the 1979 Cricket World Cup final highlighted this, and his partnership with David Gower was a feature of the successful England team of the immediate post-Packer era. Known for his eccentric movement at the crease, Randall was a determined batsman, specialising in hooks, pulls, cuts and cover drives, the former being used most memorably against Dennis Lillee in the Centenary Test in Melbourne in 1977 when he made 174, the highest Test score by any Nottinghamshire batsman in the history of Test cricket.