Gareth Bland |
The 18 months between March 1968 and September 1969 saw the birth of a very different future England batsman. Two became England captains in the form of Michael Atherton and Nasser Hussain. Born 5 March 1968 apart, Lancaster-born Atherton and Mumbai-born Essex Boy Hussain each maximized their talents with the bat and set an example after becoming leaders of the team. The other two, Thorpe and Ramprakash, were more erratic and often difficult to fathom. Ramprakash may have lost his reputation as England cricket’s closest man at Test level, reaching a century largely through his late career bloom with Surrey, but Graham Thorpe is probably still no less understood and appreciated than his former Surrey team-mates or international colleagues. no see. Atherton and Hussein.
While Atherton made his debut in the 1989 Ashes series, a dismal 4-0 home thumping, Hussain started in the Caribbean tour that followed in 1989/90. Ramprakash began his international career against the West Indies in 1991, where he looked the part despite failing to get past his twenties that summer. Graham Thorpe was the last of the four to enter international cricket when he made his Test century on debut against Australia at Trent Bridge in 1993. Thorpe was also the oldest to debut at 24, while the other three were all introduced for Tests. He was 22 years old when he took the field. Thorpe, who last left the international scene in 2005, is also someone whose records, at least in purely statistical terms, are comparable to those of the best players of his era.
Having made his first-team debut in the summer of 1988, the Surrey left-hander established himself as a regular in the 1989 season. After four overseas tours for England A, Thorpe finally made his England debut against Australia in the Trent Bridge Test that summer. At the age of 24, he continued to be a mainstay of the British middle class until his sudden departure in 2005, at the age of 36.
Unlike Atherton, Ramprakash and Hussain, Thorpe has never played with Botham, Gower or Lamb. Although he played the first 18 months of his international career with Graham Gooch, the Surrey man never absorbed the culture of the champagne set that the charismatic hedonists personified in the late Seventies and for the next 15 years. When Botham, Lamb and Gower all left to play international cricket against Pakistan in the summer of 1992, it was at a time when the cult of dilettantes of the 80s was being cruelly decimated.
Just as Thorpe never headlined an England line-up alongside the departing heroes of 1992, he was also active in the era of home terrestrial TV and before the arrival of Kevin Pietersen. In fact, his international career ended after the second Test match (his 100th match) against Bangladesh in the summer of 2005. that Pietersen arrived to replace Thorpe himself for the series against Australia in the second half of the summer.
After a 2-1 Ashes win, OBEs, parades and parties at 10 Downing Street, England’s cricket team became owned by TV subscribers and a fan base made up largely of relaxed touring bands. If so, Thorpe could be located in a time zone sandwiched between two different eras. Although he rubbed shoulders with many of the heroes of 2005 as a team-mate, his on-field career largely ended before Michael Vaughan’s men beat Australia that year. Pietersen’s confident approach and pyrotechnic success took on a different shade of England’s character, and Flintoff became the most accomplished of Botham’s successors. Ramprakash’s earnest and ultimately flawed precocity, along with Atherton’s updated Lancastrian interpretation of the MJK Smith persona, along with Thorpe’s diligence and calm abilities became totems almost forgotten in another era.
So what performances marked Thorpe’s international career? In his 100 Test matches, he averaged 44.66 and his average fell below 40 against India (35.37) and South Africa (35.88). He averaged over 50 against New Zealand and Pakistan and scored 49.42 against Sri Lanka. Lanka scored 45.74 against Australia, the best in the world. Likewise, in 27 Tests against West Indies, he scored 1740 at 42.43. His averages of 45.17 in 49 home Tests and 44.16 in 51 overseas competitions also testify to his consistency and mastery of a variety of surfaces. Moreover, batting at his preferred number 5, he averaged 56.21 at Test level.
Among Thorpe’s signature innings during his England tenure was his debut innings of 114 in July 1993. The left-hander, who was unbeaten when Graham Gooch declared the innings, made no fuss but brightened the English summer once again with his positive and calm sense. , typified by some nervous and technically maladaptive batting displays. Offensively, there is little England batting can do to match Thorpe’s unbeaten double hundred against New Zealand in Christchurch in 2002. Although he was later eclipsed by Nathan Astle’s record for the fastest double century in Test history, Thorpe’s 200* came from 231 balls and consisted of 28 fours and four sixes. However, it was in early 2001 that Thorpe had his most successful Test match innings. In the three-match series deciding Test against Sri Lanka in Colombo, Thorpe mastered Muralitharan, scoring an unbeaten 113 out of 249. With only Atherton, Trescothick and Vaughan reaching the twenties, Thorpe was out himself. Likewise, his 74-6 total of 32 unbeaten wins led England home in a low-scoring match.
Although seen as a quiet man, Thorpe was not intimidated and often clashed with authority. Before returning to the England squad in 2003, Angus Fraser questioned Thorpe’s ability to follow the group ethos. Bumble himself, David Lloyd, also questioned Thorpe’s attitude, drawing on his experience with the left-hander during his time as England coach from 1996-1999. When the pain of his failed marriage took its toll, Thorpe took an indefinite withdrawal from the game in 2002, returning to England and playing for England more sporadically until his final retirement in June 2005. After his return to Africa in 2003, in his final encore against Bangladesh in 2005, he scored 1511 runs with 54 batting.
Six years after Thorpe retired in 2011, David Gower ranked him as the second best England bat he had ever played with or commented on. Creeinfo The profile describes him as “The most complete England batsman since Gooch-Gower” era. Although he did not convert 50s into hundreds as well as he should have, the 16 he recorded was constructed in a way that his English colleagues struggled to match. Shifty and painful as Graham Thorpe may have been at times, he was also one of England’s unsung and underrated batting gems of the last three decades.
