Graham Thorpe’s struggles with mental illness led him to take his life earlier this month. I salute an outstanding cricketer and the public remarks from his family raising awareness of major depression.
There were no evening shadows in the Karachi outfield. It was simply dark. As Pakistan’s fielders froze, unable to read where the cricket ball was going, England chipped off the requisite number of runs to record an unlikely and historic victory, their first in Pakistan for 39 years. England’s batsmen, spearheaded by Graham Thorpe, did the damage with Thorpe hitting the winning runs. The joyous image from December 2000 of he and captain and dear friend, Nasser Hussain, walking off looking like ecstatic schoolboys is one of cricket’s more iconic and endearing. Two weeks ago, Thorpe took his own life and now his family and friends must make sense of the loss.
When Illness Took Over
Last week, Graham Thorpes’ wife, Amanda, and daughter, Kitty, sought out former England cricketer and columnist at The Times, Michael Atherton, to provide the family perspective on Thorpe’s tragic death. They wanted to heighten the awareness of the illness that he succumbed to, but also emphasize his life should not be defined by it. Their brave words merit repeating verbatim:
“For the past couple of years, Graham had been suffering from major depression and anxiety,” Amanda said. “This led him to make a serious attempt on his life in May 2022, which resulted in a prolonged stay in an intensive care unit.
“Despite glimpses of hope and of the old Graham, he continued to suffer from depression and anxiety, which at times got very severe. We supported him as a family and he tried many, many treatments but unfortunately none of them really seemed to work.
“Graham was renowned as someone who was very mentally strong on the field and he was in good physical health. But mental illness is a real disease and can affect anyone. Despite having a wife and two daughters whom he loved and who loved him, he did not get better.
“We are not ashamed of talking about it,” Kitty said, with remarkable composure. “There is nothing to hide and it is not a stigma. We were trying to help him get better before and trying to protect him, which is why we said nothing. This is the time now to share the news, however horrible it is. We’ve wanted to be able to talk and share and we’d now like to raise awareness, too.”
“He loved life and he loved us but he just couldn’t see a way out. It was heartbreaking to see how withdrawn he had become. He was not the same person. It was strange to see this person trapped in the body of Dad. That’s why we’ve been so happy that the many reflections have been about his life before this illness took over. I’m glad that’s how everyone does remember him, rightly so, as the complete character he was.”
“He was so unwell in recent times and he really did believe that we would be better off without him and we are devastated that he acted on that and took his own life,” she says.
The words and outcome are devastating.
For all the positive changes, male sports and the male psyche are uncomfortable bedfellows with mental health. By summoning the courage to disclose his story, discussing his death and celebrating his life, Graham Thorpe’s family have lifted the veil on what a brutal, indiscriminate illness and killer major depression can be.
Thorpe’s former England teammate, Marcus Trescothick, was the one of the first to break ranks and talk about depression and anxiety in his book, Coming Back to Me, published in 2008. In it, he dealt with one of the great taboos of elite sports and urged more sports stars to detail their struggles with mental health. Cricket, like most other professional sports over the past twenty years, has placed a healthy emphasis on bringing psychologists in to work with players, to deal with stress, pressure and develop characters. It must be said, aside from media scrutiny and pressure to maintain performance, international cricketers have to undergo arduous away tours two times a year, sometimes up to two months at a time. Balancing that time away from home, whether you’re a player or coach, is difficult.
I’m going to heed his family's call and remember Thorpe, the cricketer and character.
Memories of a Surrey Lad
Graham Thorpe was a first rate cricketer whose batting exploits during a barren era for English cricket in the 1990s and then a unit on an upward trajectory in the early noughties, marked him out as the best English batsman of his generation. He played with skill and the attacking verve his talents afforded, whether facing fast or spin bowling. England relied on him to be the man to steer them through a crisis, because there was no better reader of the match situation. He could temper his approach, and attack or defend depending on it. His was a game for all seasons.
A feature of his time facing cricket’s best bowlers from Wasim Akram to Shane Warne was that he scored runs against them all. Akram described Thorpe as the “best left-handed batsman I bowled to”. He brought calmness to the crease and often found himself coming in to steady the ship with England teetering on the brink of collapse in innings. He was a stylish left-handed batsman who played one hundred times for his country, averaging 44.66.
Thorpe was unorthodox, and that made him more interesting than most. The Fila headband, the trademark knee up pull shot, and his disdain for English cricketing dress code: it all went to reinforce how he was own man, never conforming.
Life away from the field of play he found a little more complicated. According to other players and journalists, there was a fragility to him and at times a lack of self confidence.
Thorpe held several coaching roles with England in one day and test match cricket, before departing alongside several coaches following England’s Ashes drubbing in Australia in 2022. We now have an insight into just how much that must have hurt.
His imprint was all over seminal modern players such as Joe Root and Ben Stokes who have taken England to the next level. When England’s captain Ben Stokes stepped out at Lords with a Thorpe jersey on in the summer of 2022, everyone in the England camp was aware that he was seriously ill, even though the families privacy was being respected. As his family have subsequently acknowledged, he made an attempt on his life which landed him in the ICU.
Darkness After Dusk
The remarkably brave Thorpe family is right. We should remember the distinguished career Thorpe enjoyed on the cricket field, the empathetic coach and the anti-establishment upstart idolized in the dressing room and by cricket fans around the world. Lest we forget, Graham Thorpe was human and a breath of fresh air to those whose lives he touched, whether he knew them or not.
I’ll leave the final word to his former captain and best friend, Nasser Hussain, now a media pundit, who was with Thorpe during many highs and lows for English cricket, most famously in Pakistan for that legendary win in the darkness in 2000: “As a fan, you want your cricketers to show that it matters and Thorpey always showed that it mattered. I loved him as a mate because I just felt so comfortable with him, whether it was batting at Edgbaston during that double hundred partnership, walking off at Karachi with the dressing room lights on, or my last test match. He did his utmost everyday to win us test matches. His teammates feel the loss of Graham. His family must be feeling the loss. We absolutely loved him.”
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