Interview: Graham Thorpe

Graham Thorpe has seen a lot more of Chelsea than he normally would this season. Watching football is what he has been doing instead of wintering in Australia and South Africa with England. Not just that, obviously - he has had a lot of other things on his plate. Besides, no one would turn down the chance to play in an Ashes tour to watch Chelsea. Not even Graham Thorpe. But still, he has been to Stamford Bridge a lot, taking his son with him to introduce the boy to what he calls the true faith.

"Henry went to his first game the other week, I was a bit worried he might be a little bit bored, he's only six, but he loved it," Thorpe says. "At the end I asked him who his favourite player was and he said Melchy. He meant [Mario] Melchiot. He liked him because he had the ponytail. I said: 'What about Zola he's fantastic isn't he?' He went 'nah'. Honestly, kids, you try to bring them up in the proper way . . ."

It is a good joke at his own expense. The way he brings up his kids has occupied Thorpe's mind in a very public way this past year or so. More than any other sportsman, his determination to take account of their interests has compromised his participation at the highest level of his profession. In the past players didn't pull out of the Ashes tour to be with their children: they just disappeared off for six months and were happy to be reintroduced formally to any passing offspring on their return.

"Yeah, definitely, 15, even 10 years ago, what I did would have been an absolute no-no for a cricketer, you just got on with it," he says. "But times change. Society changes. And while each player must make their own decisions, I'm by no means the only one to be in this sort of situation."

Not that Thorpe should be regarded as a pioneer new man: his story is a touch more complicated than that. More, he is a symptom of the strains that modern cricket puts on a player's personal life. Obliged to go on lengthy tours, he had been known to fall prey to tempting offers to alleviate his loneliness. His wife, tired of both the absences and the attendant lapses, sought a divorce. Things got bitter, she sold her story to a tabloid, there was a custody battle. And finally, last autumn, after she met a new partner, there was the threat that she might move with the children to South Africa, effectively cutting off fatherly access.

"I had a hell of a lot to deal with," Thorpe recalls of that time back in October. "Probably for the first time in my life something became much bigger than cricket. Cricket had to take a back seat in my life."

Not many sportsmen would make a decision like that lightly. Team players in particular are plagued by insecurity, prone to a constant looking over the shoulder to see if someone is after their place, prepared to fight all sorts of imagined threats to cling on to their position. To relinquish it voluntarily seems to go against the very instincts of the competitive being.

"Well, I've never been afraid to do that," Thorpe says. "And I've never regretted the decisions I've made. Four years ago, when I didn't go to South Africa [on tour], I didn't regret that then. I felt my body needed the break. Plus I needed to be with my family then, put some time into things. Likewise what happened this winter, no regrets."

So why then did he waver last autumn? What the England fan, watching from the sidelines, finds hard to fathom is why Thorpe said he was going in the first place, only to change his mind a fortnight later. "No I guess it's fair to say my decision- making was indecisive," he admits. "The problem was it was absolutely the wrong decision to say, 'OK I'll tour.' I felt I'd allowed myself to make that judgment for the wrong reasons."

Which were?

"Well, what you were saying about the competitive person. These things loom large: maybe your last chance to tour Australia or go to the World Cup, these are big events in a cricketer's life. But what I came to realise was those kind of considerations had to be secondary. In retrospect now, if somebody asks me how much of that winter did I miss, how often did I look at the telly and think it could have been me, well not much at all. Which made me think I made the right decision. Eventually."

The winter, though, is now long gone. On a glorious London day, Thorpe is sitting on a chair, in his whites, on the playing surface at The Oval. All around him preparations are being made for the start of the season. There is mowing and clipping and trimming; marketing men are wandering round on mobiles trying to fill the empty space on Surrey shirts with a sponsor's name; up in the stands contractors are cleaning a winter's worth of scud off the seats. As metaphors for a fresh start go, the new cricket season is about as pertinent as could be found. As Thorpe contemplates his 15th season at the county does it feel like he is starting over again?

"Blank sheet of paper, absolutely," he says. "Coming back into it will be interesting. But I'm looking forward to the challenge ahead. That's important for me. I've got to be realistic as well. Not beat myself up if things don't go the way I want them to go over the first month. I've been encouraged by the couple of friendlies we've had how much I've enjoyed myself. Enjoyed the batting, the fielding, being back in the dressing room. For much of the winter I've been alone with my situation, so it's good to have the dressing room again."

His ambition, he says, has not been dulled. He is up for this, can't wait to get playing for Surrey again. Which is easy to say on a balmy afternoon before battle has commenced. But have his batteries been charged sufficiently for a cold morning in Swansea playing in front of six men and a daffodil? After all, as the flecks of grey in his temples indicate, he is now 33 and much of his past 10 years has involved playing in front of huge Test crowds. If he is prepared to sidestep the game at its pinnacle, can he really rouse himself for the thankless grind of the county circuit again?

"I think as you go through a career your attitude changes," he says. "When you're young you're very keen to impress, you're totally unaware of what other experiences are like and you just play. Then you start to play international cricket and that does create that real buzz for you. That excitement, performing on that stage, it adds a dimension. Now, as you get older and you begin to realise this isn't going to be around forever, you relish all the opportunities to play. That said I have always enjoyed my cricket for Surrey."

Always?

"OK, before central contracts it could be tough. You'd play a five-day match for England, come back and play the next day. That was hard to pull yourself through that game. But I'd say that was due to tiredness not a lack of enthusiasm. I am determined to enjoy every moment playing here at Surrey."

To which the obvious question is: just at Surrey?

"Look, I have expectations but I'm not going to shout about getting back in the England team. What I am going to do is go out there and enjoy my cricket again and leave all my options open. I've said I'm available to play both one-day and Test cricket. That doesn't mean I expect to walk in. We'll just have to see how it goes."

He is, though, available. His personal life is more secure and he can ready himself for England again. Which will come as a relief to many: England have missed his nudges and nicks, the unostentatious way he has of reaching 50 before you notice he is even out at the crease.

Yet doubts about his character hang around him now. However good a player he is, can he be trusted by the management ever again? His good friend Nasser Hussain in particular, who put so much work into persuading him to tour Australia last year only to be let down, must have lost patience by now.

"Obviously whenever you turn down a tour, people ask if you feel you've let people down," he says. "Well, no, I don't feel I have. It's for them to understand my situation. But what people will want to see - and if I was in their shoes, if I was the manager or captain, I'd feel exactly this - is that the guy's form and fitness is good, that's what counts. I don't believe any thing else should matter. I don't think people are so short sighted to say: 'Oh, he did that, well we're not going to pick him then.' If he's doing things out there in the middle that can't be ignored, well that's what counts. Just as no one should get in on a reputation based on runs scored in the past, no one should be prevented from getting in on a reputation based on circumstances which have changed."

It is a good argument and one that, I can't help feeling, Thorpe has been buffing and polishing in front of his shaving mirror all winter. Whether those who take the decisions accept it, well, as the man himself says, we shall have to wait and see.