On August 21, the England players, together with the crowd in Manchester, remembered Graham Thorpe who was cricketer before his death on August 4. After a year when he passed away, a video of Thorpe appreciating his own contributions to English cricket was played on stadium’s big screen.
The England players standing on the ground and support staff continuing their jobs started commemorating one of their cricketing legends. Thorpe retired from international arena in mid 2000s after having scored over 9000 runs with 16 centuries during his time starting from early 90s until then.
The video shows how the Manchester crowd and England players paid tribute to Graham Thorpe before commencing the first Test match:
For, Thorpey ❤️ pic.twitter.com/lvvxeP87qP
— England Cricket (@englandcricket) August 21, 2024
Graham Thorpe had been stricken with severe disease since 2022 and committed suicide after encountering psychological problems such as anxiety and depression. After playing, Surrey batsman was England’s batting coach and assistant coach at different times from 2013 to the ashes series of 2021-22.
On Day 1 of the first Sri Lanka test match, the England team will be wearing black armbands in honour of the late Graham Thorpe.
“He had a huge influence on my career” – Joe Root comments on Graham Thorpe
England cricket star Joe Root has expressed his gratitude to Graham Thorpe for greatly impacting on his career. Joe Root is presently the second-best Test runs scorer for England with 12027 runs only surpassed by Alastair Cook.
Among other things, Thorpe is ranked 15th among all-time leading run-getters in Tests for England with a total of 6744 runs. The day before the first Test match against Sri Lanka, Root told Sky Sports that:
“A lot of my interactions with Graham and where his biggest influences came were as a coach when he started the second phase of his career. It was quite surreal first getting to meet someone of his stature and talking about the game.”
”I worked very closely with him for the next 12 years or so. He had a huge influence on my career and arguably without his backing and pushing my case, I may not have had the career I’ve had.”
Thorpe was a giant in domestic cricket for Surrey and had an overall career with nearly 33,000 runs in first-class matches, List A and T20 games. In addition, he was part of the support staff for England during their one day international world cup victory in 2019.
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