Graham Thorpe: Rising from the Ashes

After tea, I batted again. We were already well ahead and preparing to set India a big target. We were 60-odd for two when I joined Michael Vaughan, who was already playing well and on course for a century — he was then in the early stages of a golden run that lasted for the next 12 months. It was after tea, and there was still a while to go until stumps. Even if I’d been in a great state of mind it was the kind of situation I’d have found awkward. I was rarely great when the match didn’t demand much of me. I preferred it when we had our backs to the wall — but now that only applied to my private life.

I remember walking out to bat and looking around the field, supposedly to take in where the fielders were positioned, but knowing full well that I wasn’t going to do a thing. I had absolutely zero game-plan. A couple of balls came down from Kumble and I just swung my arms, feet planted at the crease. Somehow, in the next over from Ajit Agarkar, I squirted one out on the leg side for a single. That got me back down to Kumble’s end. I remember registering that he’d decided to go round the wicket to bowl into the rough, but I thought, ‘I don’t really care.’ I blocked one, then left one, before having another wild swing. The ball leapt out of the rough, hit high on the bat and my drive went uppish to a fielder in the covers.

My over-riding feeling as I trudged off was huge sadness that I could have played in such a state of mind, but there was anger too, anger that Nicky, I suspected, would have been happy to see me go through this torment. She had spoken of getting her revenge — and if that’s what she wanted it must have been sweet. I kind of made up my mind there and then to pack it in, walking off the field and trudging through the Long Room to an embarrassed silence.

It would have been almost completely silent in the dressing-room, too. It’s usual for someone to say, ‘Bad luck, mate’, but that was one thing I always hated because often it wasn’t bad luck and, even if it was, I didn’t want to hear it. So I’m pretty sure it was quiet. I felt a sense of relief as I sank back into my chair thinking, ‘This is definitely the last time. I can’t go through that again.’

WE WON the Test with quite a bit to spare, late on the final day. I remember taking the winning catch: I have this picture in my head of holding the catch off Simon Jones low down at gully, throwing it up and seeing the boys running together. I simply turned and walked off.

Nasser knew one of his players hadn’t really been at the races. I’d spoken to him during the game, out the back of the dressing-room where there’s a TV, and told him I didn’t think I could do this much longer. That was shortly after I’d had that session with the barrister. Like Duncan Fletcher, the coach, Nasser knew very well I’d been having severe marital problems for several months.

I told him I couldn’t get my mind into any decent place to play cricket. Playing for England, you’re meant to have your whole heart and mind in it. I said that I didn’t feel I was giving him anything, wasn’t giving the team anything and that, to be honest, he’d have to get rid of me in a game or so anyway if I carried on the way I was. It really was best if I went away and tried to sort myself out. He reminded me that two games ago I’d got a hundred. ‘Yeah, and do you know how I managed it? Because I’m not sure I do.’

Alec Stewart and Mark Butcher, my Surrey muckers, were very good at the end of the game. They stayed around. Butch had gone through a separation of his own a couple of years earlier and said I reminded him of himself then, playing cricket but not really wanting to be there. Butch said he admired me and that I would eventually come through, stronger. I felt on a good level with Butch. We both understood that although there was a game going on out in the middle, occasionally things off the field had to take priority. They were kind words of encouragement, even if I found them hard to believe at the time.

I hadn’t really said anything to Duncan during the game, but could tell the wily old fox had been keeping an eye on me. Duncan had been England coach for three years, and I had learned that I could speak honestly with him. His public image was dour but there was a lot more to him than the public saw. He was always sensitive to how his players were getting along as people. I knew he cared about us and I trusted him. He’d had his own difficulties in life, growing up in Zimbabwe and taking the big step of leaving for South Africa in his mid-thirties with little money in his pocket and few firm plans in his head.

Soon after the finish, I called him onto the balcony. ‘Are you all right?’ he said. ‘No. I don’t think I can do this any more,’ I replied. ‘I don’t want to carry on the way I’ve been during this game. I really need to get away from cricket and have a break. I’m not giving you anything. To be honest, I’m totally fucked up at the moment.’

‘I can tell your mind’s not on the job …’ He was trying to cajole me. ‘But what are you going to do? I’m concerned about you as a human being. All right, there’s the cricket side, but I’m more concerned about you. You come away from the cricket now and what are you going to do? Sit at home and your problems are going to multiply by 10.’

‘I just can’t go on the way my mind is,’ I explained. ‘I’m not freezing out there, but I am becoming a wreck. I think I’m losing control of my mind.’

‘All right,’ he said. ‘But, you know, you’ve got to do something.’

A few minutes later, I spoke to Keith Medlycott, the coach at Surrey, and Richard Thompson, the club chairman, and asked them to support me because I had to withdraw from all cricket.

And so there I was, left to pack my bags.

As I walked through the Long Room, I looked around for one last time. ‘This is it,’ I thought. ‘I’m never going to play at Lord’s again.’ If you’d told me that I would not only play more Test matches at Lord’s, but the next time I’d help Nasser knock off the runs for victory, I simply wouldn’t have believed you.

Honestly, my over-riding feeling then was of utter relief. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I knew I couldn’t go through another match like that again.

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