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Post by davemorton on Aug 9, 2024 22:37:30 GMT
I am surprised to see no thread. I learned of Thorpe's death from the Yorkshire Post on the morning of the Essex match, and the players stood in silence in his memory.
He was one of my very favourite players, less flashy than Gower (whom I also loved), more fluent than John Edrich. Right up there in the pantheon of left handers.
Brian Close holds an unassailable position in my heart, as does Adam Lyth, and surely Sobers was the greatest left-hander of all. Old-timers spoke of Frank Woolley. Thorpe had a bit of Border's nuggety fighter, and of Warner, and more than a touch of Gower's grace. Perhaps Trescothick was England's best, and obviously Cook wasn't far behind. Globally, Sangakkara is up there, too, perhaps alongside Sobers, even.
But I loved watching Thorpe, when the chips were down and the crap was flying. Australia at Edgbaston, and a huge partnership with Hussain; South Africa at Headingley, and pulling the short stuff from a battery of quicks. There's the one we all watched on TV, in the dark against Pakistan.
A beautiful, beautiful player; many happy memories.
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Post by hawke on Aug 10, 2024 10:33:47 GMT
I mostly recall the innings in Pakistan in deteriorating, dark, conditions which helped win the Test. Remember listening to it on the radio on my dinner break. Well in the Ken Barrington mould that day.
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Post by newby on Aug 10, 2024 11:51:17 GMT
I was going to start a thread when the news broke but left it to someone else.
I knew his excellent coaching career had come to an end in 2022 due to an unnamed serious illness. RIP.
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Post by Hit Wicket on Aug 12, 2024 21:12:32 GMT
I don't have anything to add but to say how terribly sad I felt at discovering he'd committed suicide. Though I want to applaud DaveMorton for his pitch perfect tribute at the top of this page.
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Post by byased on Aug 13, 2024 12:32:13 GMT
The news gets worse in terms of the means by which he committed suicide. Difficult to imagine how someone could be feeling to come to the conclusion to end your life that way. I did not watch him play that much but his record speaks for itself.
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Post by davemorton on Aug 13, 2024 13:55:50 GMT
Two aspects are particularly sad. 1. That a man in decent physical health, in what should be the contented middle part of his life, could be so down that he wished to end it all, and no one round him was able to help. 2. That having made the decision to die, there is no mechanism by which this can be done painlessly and with dignity, and any family or friend who assisted would be a criminal, and subject to the severest penalties, under our archaic laws. I believe that a person's life belongs entirely to that person, and is his or hers to end as they please. Always. If it clashes with religious beliefs, then that's their decision also, not to suicide. I have a very funny and moving book called 'The Universe versus Alex Woods' a first novel by Gavin Extence. I never stopped laughing through the first half, as very weird teenager Gavin assists a terminally ill old man towards a peaceful end. The details of the death, in Switzerland, are incredibly moving. Gavin's arrest, on return to England, where the book starts, is off the scale for wackiness. I was hooked from the first paragraph. The book is also an homage to Kurt Vonnegut, who was one of my favourite authors when I was a teenager. omni.wikiwand.com/en/articles/The_Universe_Versus_Alex_Woods
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Post by hawke on Aug 14, 2024 9:13:03 GMT
The news gets worse in terms of the means by which he committed suicide. Difficult to imagine how someone could be feeling to come to the conclusion to end your life that way. I did not watch him play that much but his record speaks for itself. yes worse indeed terrible
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