I first met Graham Thorpe when Surrey under-12s came up against Middlesex under- 12s. He opened the bowling and batted No 8 that day. He was a month older than me and we continued up the cricketing age groups, in many ways we grew up together. We shared a love of football, he was a big Chelsea fan and was a seriously good footballer, better than me by a distance.
Our careers ran in parallel, I made my England Test debut in 1991 and he followed a couple of years later. In the early 90s, along with Nasser Hussain, we were seen as the young pretenders. Graham became a fantastic player of both high-quality pace and spin, particularly strong off the back foot with his cut shots and pull shots.
