England to pay tribute to Thorpe ahead of 1st Test against Sri Lanka

MANCHESTER: England players will pay tribute to late batter Graham Thorpe before the start of the first Test match against Sri Lanka at Manchester on Wednesday.

The teams will be lining up for a moment of applause before their national anthems at the Old Trafford Stadium, with a tribute video being played on the big screen.

Broadcaster Sky Sports will also be paying tribute to the batter in their coverage. Thorpe committed suicide at the age of 55 on August 4, after years of battle with what his wife Amanda described as "major depression and anxiety".

Thorpe made his international debut in 1993 and was the mainstay of the English batting throughout the late 90s and early 2000s. The southpaw played 100 Tests and scored 6744 runs at an average of 44.66, with 16 hundreds and 39 fifties to his name.

His highest score was 200*. In ODIs, the gritty batter scored 2380 runs at an average of 37.18 with 21 fifties. Thorpe was also the team's batting coach and assistant coach until the 2021-22 Ashes tour to Australia, which England lost by 4-0. Thorpe was an influential figure in the English dressing room, having worked with most of the squad that is playing the Sri Lanka series.

The batter was also a figure who helped in flourishing of star players Joe Root and Ben Stokes in their careers. Notably, in his first Test as a full-time skipper, Stokes had worn a jersey bearing Thorpe's name to the toss following former players' suicide attempt that had left him seriously ill.

Stand-in skipper Ollie Pope confirmed that the players will be wearing black armbands in memory of Thorpe, calling him a "great man". He reminisced about playing for England with the former player as their batting coach and his greatest advice.

"We will have our black armbands on throughout the course of the game and there will be a tribute to him before. It has hurt a lot of people in that changing room. He was a great man. I probably had two or three years playing with him as a batting coach. I really admired him," said Pope as quoted by ESPNCricinfo. "I remember him saying one thing to me, which was: 'Never let the runs you are scoring define you as a person'. In a bit of a rut when you are young, that was exactly what I needed to hear. It shows, for me, what a people's person he was. He was loved in the changing room.

He is such a sad loss to everyone: to the country, his family and the boys as well. He is missed, and we will honour him this week," he added. The opening of an inquest into batters' death last week heard that he died due to "traumatic injuries" after being struck by a train at Esher Railway Station in Surrey on the August 4 morning.

Lancashire, the county that uses the Old Trafford Stadium as their home stadium, will also be recognising the career of legendary pacer James Anderson, who retired from international cricket last month with 704 Test wickets and 991 international wickets.

His achievements will be celebrated on the outfield during the lunch interval and former England batter Michael Atherton will be making a presentation for him.