Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting has paid a heartfelt tribute to late England batsman Graham Thorpe. In a shocking news for the cricket fraternity, Graham Thorpe passed away on August 4, 2024 due to a long-term illness.

Thorpe played exactly 100 Test matches for England and scored 6744 runs at an average of 44.66. He hit 16 hundreds and 39 fifties during his Test career. Thorpe also played 82 ODIs in which he scored 2380 runs at an average of 37.18.

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Ricky Ponting’s heartfelt tribute to the late Graham Thorpe

In the latest episode of the ICC Review, Ricky Ponting looked back at Graham Thorpe and recalled his interaction with him. In 2013, Ponting was at the end of his cricketing career while Thorpe was part of the Surrey coaching staff.

“I had a bit of interaction with him during my time at Surrey. I remember my last year of first-class cricket, I was actually playing for Surrey and I only played maybe half a dozen first-class matches. But I became an international player at Surrey County Cricket Club, which I am very proud of. And obviously I thought he (Graham Thorpe) was a Surrey legend, an English legend,” said Ricky Ponting.

The legendary Australian captain mentioned that Thorpe was considered one of the greatest batsmen of all time. He also spoke of the connections Thorpe had with current England players while he was on the coaching team.

“I’ve heard Wasim Akram describe him as the best left-handed batsman he’s ever bowled to. A lot of his English teammates called him ‘the little genius’ because he was so good. And some of the lads I work with now in the UK were very good friends of his,” said Ricky Ponting.

“I mentioned Alec Stewart earlier, he was the Director of Cricket and head coach at Surrey when I was there. Guys like Ian Ward, who I work with at Sky, played a lot with him at Surrey. Nasser (Hussain) and Athers (Michael Atherton) were obviously very close to him as well,” Ponting added.

Ricky Ponting remembers Shane Warne and Andrew Symonds

Ricky Ponting has revealed the moment he heard the news of Thorpe’s passing. It was not long after Ponting’s former Australian teammates Shane Warne and Andrew Symonds passed away and he felt the pain of another loss to the cricketing world.

“As soon as the news broke, I made sure I called those lads straight away because it was only a couple of years ago that it happened to me with Warney (Shane Warne) and Simmo (Andrew Symonds) and those lads. It seems like a huge cricketing world, but when you lose something like that, the cricketing world really shrinks and everyone looks out for each other,” said the Australian great.

Recently, while paying tribute to Graham Thorpe, Wasim Akram took to social media to say that he was the best left-handed batsman he had ever bowled to.

Following his retirement as a player, Graham Thorpe took on the role of coach. He served as England’s batting coach and later also became England’s assistant coach. However, he resigned from his role after England’s 4-0 thrashing of Australia during the 2021-22 Ashes.