Graham Thorpe: England & Surrey great dies at 55 – one of best batters of his generation

Thorpe’s skill was developed on the club grounds of Surrey, the county he would go on to represent throughout his entire first-class career from 1988 to 2005.

On his England debut against Australia in 1993 he scored a second-innings 114 not out, having come in with the hosts in a precarious position.

It was a clear sign of what was to come.

Thorpe, who hit 2,380 runs in 82 one-day internationals, would go on to score 6,744 runs in 100 Tests at an average of 44.66, with 16 hundreds.

He scored a swashbuckling 200 not out, his highest Test score, from 231 balls against New Zealand in 2002, having dug in for 118 from 301 against Pakistan in Lahore 16 months earlier – a knock containing just two boundaries.

Fearless against pace and one of England’s best against spin, Thorpe averaged 45.17 at home, 47.85 in Asia and 48.18 in Australia – a player for all situations.

Ask his former captain Nasser Hussain to rank England’s best players of that era and Thorpe’s name would be near the top, if not number one, in the list.

“When people reel off the list of England greats, he seems to slip people’s minds, but he was a man for a crisis, for a battle,” Hussain said in 2021.

Thorpe was the stern-faced rock in a batting line-up that faltered all too often – the one England fans could usually rely on.

In one of that side’s greatest victories, against Pakistan in Karachi in 2000, it was Thorpe who hit the winning runs in the gloom, ending 64 not out.

He was also a fine fielder and particularly accomplished in the slips.