Michael Atherton and Nasser Hussain remember Graham Thorpe ❤

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Watch as Michael Atherton and Nassar Hussain pay tribute to Graham Thorpe on the first day of England’s Test again Sri Lanka. 

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well it goes without saying it’s been a desperately difficult period for thorp’s family his friends and his former colleagues and teammates two of which are alongside me now with Michael and with NASA I mean he was your best mate wouldn’t he as difficult as it is to talk about in situation like this on television he was your mate he was he was one of my best mates um he was such a good guy he was such good fund such good company he was my sort of guy you know he’d never say anything in a team en in team environment or in a room he didn’t have to walk into a room and tell you how good a player he was you just knew how good a player he was my special memories came away from Team meetings and in his room or in my room you know fiddling with bat handles and comparing bats and I look back on that now it was less about the bats and the bat handles and actually about um coping with being an international cricketer and all the pressures that go and getting yourself ready and getting your mind ready for the next day um he was always there for me in my darkest moments really and that’s probably what I feel the saddest about now is that I wasn’t there for him right at the end in his darkest moment so you know when you doubt yourself as a player or as a captain you used to walk in his room and he used to put everything into perspective um he was just he was just a really good guy and a great great player I cannot tell you how much of a great player he was and not just great 44 average 45 100 test matches but when we needed him when we were 30 for two we often were with Aon at the top of the order um you would send him out that door he’ arrive in the Middle with that Steely eye that you talk about that you could look in his eyes and you knew this bloke was up for a fight and that’s all people turning up here at test matches that’s what they want from their England cricketer they want the talent that should be a given if you’re playing for your country you should be talented but what they want is you to make the most of that talent and show some real fight and some real character and this little man I called him the little genius because that was that’s what he did day in day out he rocked up and he showed a lot of fight and a lot of character and that’s why we as teammates and fans and everyone that knew Graham and his family um that’s why we loved him because he was full of fight and character and he was full of fun I cannot tell you know that how much fun he was mean footballer too as noted by that boot from Devin Malcolm at the Wacker that went through Extra cover but I described him as the the player of his generation Steely eye I mean you would have seen that Steely eye batting out in the middle in those battles that you faced with him absolutely he was I said it before he was our best player of the 90s the most complete player that we had um Joe root who will’ll hear from later actually who speaks beautifully about grahe he used a uses a phrase he said he could sing you a ballad at the crease or he could rock your socks off it’s a lovely phrase actually because what that means is the range and he had great range as a player um um you know he could be aggressive and score quickly still owns England’s fourth quickest double hundred but he obviously could gots it out if necessary he’s a wonderful player of fast bowling I think his first 26 tests were against West Indies Australia South Africa I think are some of the great fast Bowlers that they had then um and he was a brilliant player of spin you know we’ll look back a little bit at that 100 in Columbo against Morley but he took hundreds off shame War as well so he had that great range as a player he he was the complete batsman um and somebody that you know we were both very proud to having our team