Graham Thorpe: Rising from the Ashes

by Thorpe (Author)

• Used

  Illustrated
  2006

  $5.40

  Graham Thorpe's achievements on the cricket field contrasted wildly with his personal problems, where drink and depression combined to send him spiralling off the rails. This is his brutally honest life story, including his dramatic retirement from Test cricket, and updated to include England's 2005 Ashes win, and his new coaching career. Graham Thorpe was one of the best batsmen in world cricket for more than a decade. Yet the national press hounded him as 'English cricket's most disturbed player' for pulling out of a series of tours and turning his back on the game more than once. With painful candour and often unexpected humour, Thorpe dissects his career in cricket and the inner recesses of his private life: the impact of his bitter divorce; the suicidal depression that afflicted him in his darkest hours; the reasons why he needed to 'save himself' by withdrawing from past England tours; the elation of his magnificent century on his comeback Test at the Oval in 2003; and his fresh outlook in life with a new partner after confronting his own failings and past troubles. Twelve years on from his Test debut against Australia, Thorpe took the decision to retire from international cricket after the disappointment of his controversial non-selection for the Ashes 2005 tour. With updated material on his coaching spell in Australia - where he gained valuable insight into cricket's No 1 nation - his new-found media role and his still-relevant views on where English cricket is heading post-Ashes 2005, Thorpe will continue to be an important figure in the game for years to come.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2005

  $4.19

  England's finest batsman of the last decade, Graham Thorpe's achievements on the pitch have often contrasted wildly with his personal problems away from cricket, where drink and depression have often combined to send him spiralling off the rails. This is his powerful, painfully honest life story. Graham Thorpe has been the lynchpin of the England team and at the vanguard of world cricket for more than a decade. Yet the national press hounded him as 'English cricket's most disturbed player', in 1999 he returned home from the Caribbean weeks before his team-mates; a year later he declined to tour South Africa in order to spend more time with his young family; and in 2001 he returned early from India in a vain attempt to salvage an already ruined marriage, four years after his own infidelities while on tour in New Zealand made tabloid headlines. The following summer his ex-wife was on the verge of emigrating to South Africa with his two children, and Thorpe was accused of 'betraying' England when he announced he was quitting Test cricket, only to change his mind a fortnight later. With painful candour and often unexpected humour, Thorpe dissects his career in cricket and the inner recesses of his private life: the impact of his bitter divorce; the suicidal depression that afflicted him in his darkest hours; the reasons why he needed to 'save himself' by withdrawing from past England tours; the elation of his magnificent century on his comeback Test at the Oval in 2003; and his fresh outlook in life with a new partner after confronting his own failings and past troubles. Twelve years on from his Test debut against Australia, Thorpe took the decision to retire from international cricket after the disappointment of his controversial non-selection for the Ashes 2005 tour. Hero or villain? Thorpe's life story will go some way toward resolving one of the biggest conundrums in English cricket in recent times.