Former England cricketer and coach Graham Thorpe, one of the finest Test batters of his generation, has died at the age of 55. Thorpe was a fluent left-handed batter – and right-handed bowler – who played precisely 100 Tests as well as 82 one-day internationals during a 12-year international career. He played a further 189 first-class matches for Surrey and scored 49 first-class centuries in total, averaging 45.04, before his retirement in 2005. At the end of his playing career he moved into coaching, starting in Australia, before joining England, initially as a batting coach in 2010.
