Graham Thrope

Memories of Graham Thrope:
England Tour of Sri Lanka 2001/02.

On last Sunday, I had the opportunity to watch Sanjay Manjerkar’s Modern Masters show, where they featured two great cricket players of England. Among them was Graham Thorpe. He was one of my favorites. The programme showed some highlights of the England Tour to the Caribbean and South Africa. This reminded me about the innings he played in Sri Lanka on the Tour in 2001. He was at his peak in this series. This series sparkled some controversy over the umpires decision made.



To give a brief summary, England was completely outplayed in the 1st Test played at Galle. The main reason behind this was the inability to cope the turning ball of Muralitharan and swing of Vaas. There feet weren’t moving well and more often you can see them stuck in the crease and was waiting for the ball to come to them. Non of the Englishmen fared well but one stood up and it was non other than the “New Kid on the Block”: Marcus Trescothick with a 119 in the First Test.

Then came the 2nd Test in Kandy. It was bright and sunny day and thankfully there weren’t any interruption from Mother Nature. The environment looked some what ideal to the Englishmen. This match saw the emergence of Graham Thorpe’s form as he scored 54 & 46. Overall, the Englishmen’s feet were moving well and they did cope the spin and swing quite well which resulted in a much wanted win and squared the series, in fact they did it with some difficulty.



Finally it was upto the 3rd Test decide the winner of the series. Sri Lanka batted first, and made 241 with Mahela Jayawardena scoring a worth wile 71. England batted in their 1st innings and were in trouble from the word “GO”. They ended up scoring 249 with Graham Thrope leading the way with an unbeaten 113 out of it and almost scoring half of team’s runs. It was great to see him in total control and handled the spin and swing very well. He cutted, reverse sweept, and the most best of all his pull which was memorable to watch. He was in control and for the first time Murali and Vaas went out of ideas. Sri Lanka’s misery continued in their 2nd innings as they went down with out a fight for a mere 81 runs. It was a disappointing effort from the Sri Lankans, Which gave the Englishmen to score a mere 74 of 25 Overs runs to wrap-up the series. England Startted yet again with trouble loosing quick wickets at regular intervals and this time it was Sanath Jayasuriya with his part time left arm spin which gave a horrible time to the englishment. It was upto Graham Thrope again and he did it with scoring an unbeten 32.