Former England batsman and assistant and coach Graham Thorpe has died at the age of 55.
Thorpe’s former county Surrey led the tributes after his tragic passing was announced on Monday morning. In a statement, chair Oli Slipper described him as one of Surrey’s ‘great sons’.
‘He is a legend of Surrey and brought great pride to the Club wearing both the Three Feathers and the Three Lions.’ The statement continued.
‘He made outstanding contributions to the Club as a cricketer, and as a man, and he will be so sorely missed.’
The left-handed batsman was renowned as one of the finest English players in recent history. He played exactly 100 Tests and scored 16 centuries before retiring in 2005.
During his playing career, Thorpe averaged an impressive 44.7 runs in Test matches. His highest score was 200 not out and the talented middle-order batsmen also played 77 One Day Internationals.
One of his most memorable Test innings came in 2000 against Pakistan in Karachi. After a final day implosion from the hosts, Thorpe produced an unbeaten 64 in near darkness towards the end of his innings to lead England to their first series win in Pakistan for 39 years, and Pakistan’s first loss at the National Stadium in 35 years.
‘I think literally five to ten minutes after we came off, it was pitch black,’ Thorpe told Cricket Monthly . ‘From the dressing room, coming back on to the balcony, it was pitch black.
‘We opened up bottles of lemonade, because we couldn’t drink in Pakistan. We were on a flight back to Dubai that evening, where we did have a few Guinnesses. There was about a two-hour turnaround from the end of the game, back to the hotel and on to a flight that night.’
Thorpe racked up more than 2,000 runs in the shorter format of the game and his intelligence and leadership allowed a smooth transition into coaching when he retired from playing in 2006.
He went on to begin a coaching career in Australia, where he worked with the likes of Steve Smith and David Warner at New South Wales, before joining the England and Wales Cricket Board as a batting coach.
He worked as assistant with the senior side under Trevor Bayliss and Chris Silverwood, stepping up to lead the team in this winter’s Sydney Test against Australia due to Silverwood’s coronavirus diagnosis.
The ECB also released a statement after the shock news of Thorpe’s death. A post from the body on X read: ‘It is with great sadness that we share the news that Graham Thorpe, MBE, has passed away. There seem to be no appropriate words to describe the deep shock we feel at Graham’s death.’
His position as England assistant coach looked untenable after the conclusion of the Ashes, when police were called to the team hotel in Hobart while he was smoking a cigar during a rooftop drinking session inside the premises that lasted until 6am.
It was an unfortunate ending to Thorpe’s role in the England coaching set-up and he is still held in enormously high regard among players and fans.
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