Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting recently paid tribute to England’s late player Graham Thorpe, who died after battling a serious illness on August 5. However, Thorpe was among the best Test batters in the 1990s and early 2000s with several game-changing knocks, including against Australia in the Ashes as well. In his Test career spanning 100 games, he scored over 6,700 runs at an average of 44.66 with 16 centuries and 39 half-centuries as well. Thorpe also shone brightly in Tests against the Aussies, averaging almost 46 with three centuries and eight half-centuries in 16 matches also.

Speaking to the ICC, Ponting said, “I had a bit of interaction with him with my time at Surrey. And obviously thought he (Thorpe) was a Surrey legend, an English legend. I’ve heard Wasim Akram describe him as the best left-hand batsman that he ever bowled to,” said Ponting. A lot of his English teammates called him ‘the little genius’ for how good he was. And some of the guys that I work with in the UK now were extremely close with him.”

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Graham Thorpe also had an impressive record in ODIs, scoring 2,380 runs which came at an average of 37.18 in 82 outings. He saved his best for the big occasion, can be seen by his impressive average of 54.14 in World Cups. And, Ricky Ponting also mentioned how he immediately contacted former English teammates of Graham Thorpe like Nasser Hussain and Michael Atherton upon hearing the tragic news of his death as well.

“Guys like Ian Ward that I work with at Sky played a lot with him at Surrey. Nasser (Hussain) and Athers (Michael Atherton) obviously were extremely close with him as well. As soon as the news broke, I made sure I got on the phone to those guys straight away, because it’s only a couple of years ago that it happened with me with Warney (Shane Warne) and Simmo (Andrew Symonds) and those guys. It seems like this big world of cricket, but when you lose something like that, the cricket world really shrinks down and everyone looks after each other. It’s just another one of those really, really sad days as far as the game of cricket is concerned,” he concluded.