The late former captain of England, Michael Atherton, has paid respects to the late cricketer Graham Thorpe. For many years, Atherton and Thorpe were teammates on the pitch, and the former saw the latter as a sympathetic comrade and a tough competition.
On August 5, Thorpe passed unexpectedly, shocking the cricket community to its core. The 55-year-old had been suffering multiple ailments for several years and had even had to resign from his coaching jobs due to them, according to an official statement made by the ECB, which confirmed his passing.
Michael Atherton remembered numerous occasions in his career where he and Thorpe shared the stage and thought back on what it was like to play beside one other on the pitch in an emotional moment.
“Sports friendships are not at all like nine to five ones. You don’t set an alarm and go to bed. Touring with someone for three or four months allows you to get to know them quite well. At twenty-one, I went to Zimbabwe and Kenya with England A, and Graham went with me. He truly summed up my career because he was there for my final tour in Pakistan, Atherton said Sky Sports.
Thorpe’s exceptional talent against all types of bowlers was highlighted by Atherton, who went on to label him as England’s “best player” of the 1990s. He recalled the latter’s jabs at Shane Warne and Muralitharan, among numerous other opponents.
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“In the nineties, he was our best player. We had a more complete player in him. In the face of speed, he was bold and reckless. He grabbed hundreds off of Shane Warne and Murali [Muttiah Muralitharan] because of his extreme prowess against spin. Above all, he was a fearless and intense rival. He continued, “You knew he was in for a fight if we were 20-2 on the first morning of a test and you saw him coming out.”
India
