Graham Thorpe’s widow says he would be alive if ECB had offered more support | Cricket
Graham Thorpe’s widow believes he would still be alive if he had received more support from the England and Wales Cricket Board after leaving the coaching role with the management.
Thorpe, one of the most respected batsmen of his generation and, as recently as 2021, England’s assistant coach, killed himself last August after a long battle with anxiety and depression.
In July 2025, an inquest at Surrey coroner’s court in Woking heard Thorpe became “depressed” after losing his job as a batting coach in 2022 and tried to kill himself on a separate occasion. Coroner Jonathan Stevens said there had been “failures” in Thorpe’s care by health professionals in the months before he died and concluded he had committed suicide.
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Thorpe was in therapy for mental health for 18 months before leaving the ECB. Stevens noted that the organization “funded treatment, hospital stays and extended health treatment insurance” after England left in February 2022 following their last Ashes tour, in which they were defeated 4-0 in Australia.
But his widow, Amanda, believes more could have been done to help him feel better connected during this transition. “If the whole rug of his cricket career hadn’t been pulled out from under him so completely… it’s really clear to me that he would still be alive, so it would make a lot of difference,” he told TalkSport.
She added: “Looking back – and no one has a crystal ball – but it was just too much – the abyss, the whole mental breakdown of ‘I’m not in that family anymore’. If she had had a little bit of that support framework to lean on a little bit more to transition a little bit more, that would have made such a huge difference.”
Amanda Thorpe also felt the remote support offered was “distressing” and did not go far enough. “As he was going through these sessions, it was clear that he couldn’t cope with the situation. It was getting worse,” he added. “We really wanted help. I knew he needed more help than that, and it just wasn’t possible.”
The ECB has been contacted for comment. An earlier statement to the Sun described Graham as “a deeply appreciated and much-loved person. His loss is deeply felt within the cricket community and beyond and our thoughts and heartfelt sympathies are with his wife Amanda, his children and all those who loved him.”
