Graham Thorpe: An England cricket legend with a chaotic love life (2024)

He was one of England's greatest left-handers, rivalling David Gower for poise and artistry and at times was a match for the country's current talismanBen Stokes for his explosive and stylish scoring.

Today his family and the world of cricket is mourning the death of Graham Thorpe after he died at the age of just 55 - two years after falling ill with a mystery illness.

Surrey-born Thorpe was a majestic batsman and later batting coach and who was immediately adored after he put Australia and numerous other sides to the sword in the 1990s and early 2000s.

It was a period for the team that many English cricket fans would prefer to forget - but Thorpe's swashbuckling and stylish innings inspired many to take up the sport. Countless youngsters of that generation begged parents for their own yellow Kookaburra bat in the hope some of his greatness would rub off on them.

But in 2002, the year he scored thethird fastest double century in Test history,he took a 12 month break from cricket as he left a tour of Indian amid turmoil in his first marriage due to his cheating that led to abitter divorce and a battle with suicidal depression and alcoholism.

His fans fondly called him 'Thorpey', but amid questions about his partying and philandering, his first wife Nicola said after their split: 'His team-mates call him Sh*gger — need I say more?'.

Thorpe admitted later after he flew back from touring India to try to save his first marriage: 'There came a time when I would have given back all my Test runs and Test caps just to be happy again.'

Like Ian Botham, Graham Thorpe was such a stellar sportsman that he had a choice of pursuing cricket and football professionally.

At the age of eight he was playing at u18 cricket and eventually plumped for the sport.

His mercurial talent made him an international star at 23 when he faced the greatShane Warne and scored an unbeaten century on his Ashes debut during the 1993 test at Trent Bridge inNottingham.

Thorpe also scored his first overseas century on the notoriously menacing and fast Gabba pitch in Perth against the old enemy, another in Barbados against the might of Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh and a heroic 64 not out in the fading light of Karachi to seal England's first series win in Pakistanfor 39 years.

His match-winning 113 not out against star spinnerMuttiah Muralitharan's Sri Lankain 2001 will be remembered as one of the greatest innings ever played.

But fans also remember how he his stellar international career was put on hold due to chaos in his love life, that saw him return home from India to fight for his wife Nicola.

Mrs Thorpe said that while fans nicknamed him 'Thorpey', she revealed that his teammates called him 's**gger', claiming it was because of his habitual infidelity during their marriage.

'Graham has admitted to me that he has been unfaithful seven times during our relationship. But you can put a nought on the end of that as far as I'm concerned', she once said

After they split, Thorpe quit cricket and spent months home alone drinking daily bottles of scotch and smoking cigarettes in front of the TV with the curtains closed.

Such was the level of his depression there were rumours that he had considered suicide. He was also arrested on Boxing Day 2003 after an altercation on his wife's doorstep.

He said later in his autobiography Rising From The Ashes: 'One of my most vivid memories comes from just before the last Ashes series in Australia [in 2002]. I'd been selected for the tour but I pulled out because I was having more difficulties with [his ex-wife] Nicky. It was a terrible time which lasted a few months.

'I was living alone in our family home behind these permanently drawn curtains. I remember waking up one morning and seeing this mess in our front room - an empty bottle of Scotch, dirty plates, a mountain of fa*gs.

'My wife had left me, she'd taken [their children] Henry and Amelia and I was desperate. I walked to the fridge and saw this beer. It was 10 o'clock in the morning but I thought 'What the hell. I've got nothing else.'

'It wasn't a daily thing but sometimes I'd fall asleep on the couch at three o'clock in the afternoon having had three or four beers. It seems a slightly worrying period when I look back at it now; at the time it was truly awful. But it's made me more compassionate. If I walk past some guy in a doorway I react very differently. Five years ago I wouldn't have noticed him but now I wonder what terrible chain of events brought him down'.

Thorpe later admitted he was no angel before his 'emotionally crippling' divorce. There was a famous drunken ling with a 20-year-old student while on tour in New Zealand in 1997. There were rumours of several other lovers.

But he accused his first wife Nicola of having an affair with Kieron Vorster, who was a family friend and then fitness coach of Britain's star tennis player Tim Henman.

“It wasn’t just an affair. What she did was to bring another man into my house and stop me from seeing our children. My life fell from under me. I had no foundations — nothing', he said.

But the first Mrs Thorpe gave a series of interviews around that time where she gave her side of the story.she said.

After he scored 200 in one innings for England, Thorpe had dedicated it to his two eldest children.

Nicola reacted with fury and told The Sunday Mirror: 'He still insists on making the world think he is a real family man, the Mr Clean of cricket. It makes me laugh.

'He ritually humiliated me by sleeping around during our marriage and now he disgusts me. It's all very well dedicating your sporting prowess to your kids from the other side of the world.

'But to be a real dad, you have to be there at bedtime and take them to school.

'Graham loves the children, but for the last five years he has been at home for just a few weeks... and when he was away I had no idea who was sharing his bed.'

She went on: 'Graham was on tour for 11 months a year. There are so many examples of his inherent thoughtlessness - he was away when I had an ectopic pregnancy; he watched a football match while I gave birth to Henry; he was in bed with some student when Henry was five weeks old and he was absent for Amelia's birth. I could go on forever.

She added: 'I don't hate Graham. I'm just sad it ended like it did. I hope he finds happiness because it is important to the children that Daddy is happy.

'I also hope he finds someone he loves and can be faithful. But to be honest, I won't hold my breath.'

But he did find love again.

He met his second wife Amanda, with her encouragement he returned to cricket again, much to the joy of his own fans.

After returning for his beloved Surrey, he was recalled by England for the final test of the summer against South Africa where he scored 124 runs.

He was close to tears as the home crowd gave him a standing ovation.

'There were times when I thought I wasn't going to play again and more importantly I had to wipe away the memory of how I walked away from cricket last year,' he said afterwards.

'I didn't want to leave cricket like that, and you couldn't have written it better to get a century on your home ground.'

Running the gamut from stylish newcomer to grizzled veteran, Thorpe - who has died aged 55 - proved himself a dependably elite performer in an environment where chaos and collapse never seemed far away.

During a period when Australian dominance was at its relentless peak, the fact that Thorpe averaged more against the Baggy Greens than his career mark (45.74 against 44.66) spoke volumes of his ability to rise to a challenge.

Off the field, the battles were often even more intense. While operating in the full glare of international sport, Thorpe struggled with depression, divorce and drinking, culminating in a tumultuous winter in 2002 that saw him walk away from the game at what could have been his peak.

There would be a celebratory second act with England, featuring an emotional comeback century at his lifelong home ground of the Oval, and a third when he became a key figure in the international coaching set-up.

He is survived by wife Amanda and four children, Henry, Amelia, Kitty and Emma.

Born on August 1, 1969 in the market town of Farnham, little more than an hour from The Oval, Thorpe was ahead of his years on a cricket pitch and remembered being drafted by local side Wrecclesham's Under-17s while still only eight years old.

Although he would have to wait to get a bat in his hands, he recalled taking a catch - an early indicator of the safe hands that would make him a regular in the slip cordon and bring over 600 professional catches.

He was spotted early by Surrey, who picked him up as an under-11 and never let him go, even when Brentford Football Club came calling with the offer of trials.

Despite showing enough promise to be selected by England Schools as a ball-playing link between defence and midfield, Thorpe would go on to choose the summer sport and later became one of the country's most accomplished players of spin. Once a sweeper, always a sweeper.

Thorpe would go on to become England's best left-handed batter since David Gower and enjoyed an unlikely torch-passing moment on his first-class debut against Leicestershire when he took Gower's wicket with his soon-to-be phased out medium-pacers.

He was a regular feature on the nascent England 'A' circuit for four years before finally graduating to the senior side, initially in one-day internationals and then, unforgettably, the Test arena.

Selected at Trent Bridge for the third match of the 1993 Ashes and dismissed by the combative Merv Hughes in the first innings, he struck an undefeated 114 in the second to become England's first debutant centurion since Frank Hayes 20 years earlier.

He was one of four players to receive his cap in Nottingham and, while he would stick around for another 99, Mark Lathwell, Mark Ilott and Martin McCague managed a total of 10 appearances. Few stayed the course as long as Thorpe, but fewer still had such an ironclad claim.

Although his conversion rate between 50 and 100 left room for improvement - he could and should have retired with considerably more than 16 tons - his quality brooked no argument.

But the demands of touring and a faltering marriage to first wife Nicky, played out in excruciating detail through the newspapers, saw him retire from ODIs in 2002 before committing, then withdrawing, from that winter's tour of Australia.

He was able to find enough peace to regain his place for the final Test against South Africa, greeted as a returning hero as he made 124 in front of an adoring South London crowd.

Thorpe's final act as a player did not extend as far as the fabled 2005 Ashes - he was dropped for the series in favour of Ian Bell and Kevin Pietersen and retired thereafter - but by then he had already become just the eighth Englishman to reach 100 Test caps, securing a proud legacy along the way.

He stayed in the game with a move to New South Wales, where he worked with a young Steve Smith and David Warner, and returned to work with England between 2010 and 2022.

Thorpe took charge of his country in the familiar surroundings of the Sydney Cricket Ground after Chris Silverwood was laid low by coronavirus, securing a nailbiting draw to avoid a seemingly inevitable whitewash.

His final act with the team was to film an early hours get together between the two sides that ended with a call to the police and was leaked to the media.

It was a reminder that, in addition to being brilliant with bat in hand, Thorpe had always been one of England's most reassuringly human athletes.