Graham Thorpe was, statistically and in reality, the best England batsman of my teenage years and early adulthood. I shared a birthday with him, he was a tough, adaptable left-handed batter, as I aspired to be, and he had nuance and depth. He should have been the exact sportsman I loved. But I didn't. Or didn't think I did.
His main sin was not being David Gower. David Gower, the preternaturally gifted, elegant left-hander (which I could never aspire to me) was my favourite cricketer. Gower was, in his last few years, done dirty by the England hierarchy, robbed of his twilight in the side. He should always have been in the XI between 89 and 93. Then Thorpe came along, and there was no reason to bring Gower back. Thorpe, as good a batsman as Gower, 12 years younger, and, at that stage, much less trouble.
I watched Thorpe's 100 on debut vs Australia and felt ... mixed. I watched most of Thorpe's career on terrestrial TV. He was nearly always England's best player, but it was not plain sailing. He may well have been the first sportsperson I heard associated with the word "depression". He took breaks. He was in the tabloids. I remember him once being humiliated by a slower ball from New Zealand's Chris Cairns and the look of despair on his face.
England had talented batters that decade, nearly all of whose stats are brought down a long way by the grind and struggle of it - Stewart 39, Atherton 38. Hussain 37, Butcher 34, Hick 31, Ramprakash 27. All of those, you feel, if they'd played in the hospitable mid-2000s, would have averaged above 40.
Thorpe averaged almost 45, amidst all that failure. More than Gower and Gooch, more than Robin Smith, more than Vaughan and Ian Bell (who I'll get to). Adjusted for inflation and deflation, that's worth almost 50. I reckon.
He played great, match-winning innings, and you knew he would. I remember dancing around my student bedroom listening to the radio when he made 113* and 32* to win England a game vs Sri Lanka in 2001 when no one else could scratch a run. I was at Lord's in 2004 for Nasser Hussain's last test, when Nasser batted like a drain most of the day, looking like he might cost England the win, until Thorpe came in, made batting look easy, and that seemed to free Hussain up, It was Nasser that finished with a four to reach 100 to win the game for England, then retire. It wouldn't have happened without Thorpe.
Yet one year later he was out of the side. Dropped for England's greatest triumph, the 2005 Ashes, even though he'd done nothing wrong. He was 35 but still a test-class batter. He was dropped for Kevin Pietersen, which turned out to be the right decision. So Thorpe, was, mainly, the forgotten man. Though he was also dropped for the young Ian Bell, and there were certainly grumbles about that. Bell had a poor series, looked a bit of a rabbit in the headlights. Now, Bell, who went on to a storied (though arguably, considering his talent, slightly underachieving) career, is my second-favourite England batter ever. Perhaps, entirely unjustifiably, I resented Thorpe even in retirement for hanging over Bell's early career.
So, it's strange, really. Despite all the joy he brought me, Thorpe had somehow been pushed into the category of cricketers I didn't love. I heard he'd voted UKIP. Maybe he had the wrong kind of nuance for me.
There was something strange and sour about his departure from the England coaching set-up in 2022, swiftly overshadowed by the news of his falling ill. It's been clear in the last couple of years that the current players love him. The lack of news about him his been a shadow over England cricket for a couple of years. One hoped he was quietly improving. Now this.
Such tributes, such admiration. And love. Love from people who had the same memories of Thorpe as me, of him rising above the mess so often in the 1990s, of his proper old-school batting skill, all wrists and patience. He was never my cricketer, but he was a great cricketer.
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