September 25 Wednesday 2002
Thorpe withdraws from Ashes tour

LONDON: England batsman Graham Thorpe on Tuesday admitted that his decision to pull out of this winter's Ashes tour was the toughest of his career.

Just two weeks after convincing the selectors he was ready to undertake the trip to Australia, the 33-year-old dramatically changed his mind citing his inability to concentrate on cricket as he struggled to come to terms with the break-up of his marriage.

"I have informed the selectors that I wish to withdraw from the tour to Australia," Thorpe said in the statement released by his county club Surrey. "During the six weeks away from the game my personal situation did improve and I felt that I was able to make myself available for the tour.

"Since returning to the game I have found it difficult to consistently concentrate on cricket and I must be totally focused for the tour. I therefore feel it is better to be honest with the England team, the management, and myself now, rather than during the Ashes tour."

His tangled private life, as well as a constant battle against a back injury, has meant that Thorpe has only completed one full touring programme out of the last five. "It would be wrong for me to go to Australia purely for the financial gain that it would bring me whilst I am finding it difficult to fully focus on the job in hand 100 per cent of the time. This has been the hardest decision of my cricket career."

The left-handed batsman had originally assured England's management that the problems in his personal life, which forced him to take a break from cricket that summer, would not prevent him completing the tour.

Thorpe is regarded as England's finest middle-order batsman and he has always done well against Australia since he marked his Test debut with an unbeaten century at Nottingham in 1993.

David Graveney, the chairman of selectors, was sympathetic. "He has been honest and he feels he cannot do what he would want to do in a normal situation," he told BBC Radio. "I can't imagine what he has gone through during the last six months and obviously the situation might have changed from two weeks ago."

Thorpe retired from cricket in the summer in order to devote more time to his young family following the break-up of his marriage, but returned to county action and then convinced the selectors that he was ready to tour. At the time, Thorpe had said he was delighted to have been picked and determined to repay the selectors' faith.

The move to include Thorpe appeared to have been justified when he returned to form with Surrey, making 143 in an English County Championship match with Hampshire. The selectors were also acutely aware that Thorpe is one of the few English batsmen unlikely to be overawed by the superiority of the Australians.

On the 1994-95 Ashes tour, he scored 444 runs at an average of just over 49. When Australia were in England in 1997, Thorpe managed a total of 453 against them at 50.33.

The strains in his home life first became apparent when he pulled out of the 1999-2000 tour to South Africa to spend more time with his children after 10 successive years of playing through the northern hemisphere winter. After travelling to Zimbabwe at the end of last year, Thorpe left for home on the eve of the second Test in a bid to save his marriage.