Graham Thorpe:Rising from the Ashes
Graham
Thorpe: Rising from the Ashes -
 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. Buy
it now while stocks last
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. Buy The Book Now
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.
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