Despite the talent he had shown during his innings against Somerset, he found the next few seasons difficult. In an interview with All Out Cricket magazine, he said "I’d had a bit of first team cricket, and was dropped and managed to work my way back into the team in the second half of the year but just couldn’t get it right." For four seasons, between 1997 and 2000, Walker consistently averaged in the mid-twenties, scoring just one century in the process. Since then, he has scored over one thousand runs in a season on three occasions.