England players will pay tribute to the late Graham Thorpe before the start of the first Test between the hosts and Sri Lanka at the Old Trafford Cricket Stadium in Manchester on Wednesday, August 21.
Thorpe took his life at 55, on August 4, after going through “major depression and anxiety,” as his widow Amanda described. He played 100 Tests for England, scoring 6,744 runs at an average of 44.66 with 16 hundreds and 39 fifties.
Why England players wearing black armbands?
Ollie Pope, who will be leading England in the Sri Lanka series in the absence of skipper Ben Stokes revealed that his players will wear black armbands during the Manchester Test.
“We’ll have our black armbands on throughout the course of the game and there’ll be a tribute to him before,” Pope was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo on Tuesday, August 20.
“It’s 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,” he added.
The stand-in skipper also revealed that the late England great played a very influential part in his career during his time as their batting coach.
“I remember him saying one thing to me, which was: ‘Never let the runs you’re scoring define you as a person’. It shows, for me, what a people’s person he was. He was loved in the changing room. He’s such a sad loss to everyone—to the country, his family and the boys as well. He’s missed, and we’ll honour him this week,” said Pope.
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