Product Description

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. 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. 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #218546 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 416 pages

Review
'Thorpe's experiences have changed him...he has certainly learned about life away from the cricketing bubble' Wisden Cricketer 'He has invariably been English cricket's most complex and troubled man' Guardian

About the Author
Graham Thorpe was born in 1969. A lifelong middle-order batsman for Surrey CCC, he scored a century on his England Test debut against the Australians in 1993 and has been at the forefront of world cricket ever since, having played over 90 Tests and scored 15 Test hundreds. He has two children, Henry and Amelia, and is a high-profile supporter of the Fathers 4 Justice movement. Simon Wilde is the chief cricket writer on The Sunday Times.

Customer Reviews

Scathingly personal and honest autobiography
For my money, not that my money adds up to much, the finest English batsman of the last fifteen years the sight of Graham Thorpe striding to the crease was my personal barometer that everything was going to be alright. We( We meaning England) might be 36 for 3 but once flinty doughty Thorpey was in the middle I always felt reassured that all was not lost and a gritty innings renaissance would soon be underway. Of course that wasn’t always the case but it says a lot about Thorpe’s admirable fighting qualities, unflappable demeanour and sheer talent that I always thought it would be. And I’m no optimist by nature I can tell you. I was a little trepidatious that his autobiography would somehow make me think less of him, a bit like when you meet an idol in the flesh. Thankfully that isn’t the case , indeed it makes me feel I know him better as a person which I suppose is the point of an autobiography . It’s the most deeply personal account of a player’s life I’ve ever read and in many ways reflects his character as a player being compact, honest and entertaining in a non-extravagant way with the occasional flash of eye catching prose.
It’s not told in the usual strict chronological sense and deals very briefly with his childhood which is fair enough as most people aren’t that interested in players formative years. It does conclude with his exclusion from the last Ashes squad which even though we won , I still think was an error by the selectors and no surprise Thorpe thinks so too, though he does with typical candour admit his fitness would have been a problem , his back restricting his mobility to some degree.
Where it really excels is as an examination of a top sportsman mental struggle both with himself and his turbulent domestic circumstances as a result of protracted divorce proceedings. Scathingly direct, he tells how he came to the point where cricket meant less to him than his next alcohol and nicotine fix and how his circumstances lead to him approaching the game in a less intense more carefree manner leading to the golden period when he returned to test cricket against South Africa. Thorpe’s ex-wife comes in for some stick which is not surprising if events transpired as he described but I’m always a bit uncomfortable with this knowing only too well there are two sides to every story. Still she did choose the tabloids to tell her side of things ,most of which Thorpe refutes and in the end he comes across as dignified and willing to forgive which when you consider his paternity problems is something to really admire.
Rising From The Ashes is by no means the most entertaining autobiography I’ve read, but like I said it’s the most personal and though it lacks the salacious stories and spiky gossip of many sports memoirs which lets be honest is what most of us read them for ( I loved the fact he and Nasser Hussain used to sit in the TV area of the dressing room giggling at the things the commentators said though) this is still a riveting read .I loved Graham Thorpe as a cricketer, now I really like him as a person. Hope he and his family are all healthy and happy, that he finds something he enjoys doing and that his central heating doesn’t break down this winter.

as good a sports biography as I've read
Thorpe's Test performances over the years have been a source of joy-upon-joy to me, and it's fair to say I approached this with caution, wary of a potentially harrowing account that might throw a less satisfactory light on some glorious moments in recent cricket history. Instead, I found myself absolutely riveted by a powerful story I quite simply couldn't put down. This desperately human face behind a sporting hero is one I found genuinely inspiring. Thorpe's account of his life and career is told with courageous honesty, a very real sense of responsibility, and fascinating insight into the world of a professional sportsman. Thorpe's great legacy to cricket was that quiet, unspectacular ability to grab hold of hope in the midst of hopelessness; there's something of that reflected here. I expected something less than a sports autobiography; instead, I got something very much more.

A very personal autobiography
Unlike the recent autobiographies by Mike Atherton and Nasser Hussain, Graham Thorpe's tome does not offer a detailed match-by-match analysis of English cricket over his playing career. Indeed cricket is not the primary motivation behind Thorpe writing his memoirs.

The main raison d'etre of Rising From The Ashes is for Graham to tell his side of the story of his disintegrating marriage, the stress of which twice led him to withdraw from the England team for lengthy periods. In doing this, it candidly illustrates the mountains of despair that even a highly successful sportsman can reach when faced with insurmountable personal problems. Although it can be argued that these lengthy ruminations are tabloidesque, Thorpe should also be praised for his honesty - unlike his ex-wife who comes out of the book with very little credit as she continues to deny Graham basic access to their two children.

Despite Thorpe's failing marriage and battle to see his children being the main motivation behind him writing his memoirs, Rising From The Ashes also offers an interesting though slightly disjointed analysis of his cricketing career. Not as detailed or definitive as Atherton or Hussain's books but it never would have been as Graham was England captain on only a couple of occasions.

Rising From The Ashes is a passionate page-turner though not the book to read first if you are looking for an insider's account of the England cricket team during the 90s and early noughties. An honest and almost uncomfortably personal sporting autobiography.