England's Mr Consistent

A journey which began almost 12 years ago against a tough-as-nails Australian side reached its conclusion on the second day of the 2005 Ashes, when Graham Thorpe announced his retirement from international cricket. Thorpe has battled all sorts of bowlers in all sorts of conditions, and usually come away a winner. Here's a look at what the numbers say about England's Little Big Man:

Mr Consistent
The one aspect of Thorpe's career which has stood out has been his consistency. Success came early for him - in his debut Test, in fact, when he scored an unbeaten 114 in his second innings. A brief lull followed, during which period his average dipped to the early 30s, but it crept past the 40-mark in his 10th Test, and since then it's never fallen below 38. Since 2000, Thorpe's average for a calendar year has been at least 42 (except in 2005 so far, when he's only played four matches) - even when his personal life was in turmoil, Thorpe still churned out the runs whenever he played for England. (Click here for Thorpe's career summary.)

Australia's nemesis
During this 12-year period, Thorpe's numbers look especially impressive against Australia. He missed 14 of the 30 matches played between the two teams, but when he did make it to the starting XI, he made a difference. In all Tests against Australia, Thorpe averaged 45.74, but when he played them in their own backyard, the average rose to 48.18. Since 1993, Vaughan is the only English batsman to do better against Australia, and he's only played five games against them. England might feel confident about the strength of their current batting line-up, but they'll still want Thorpe around when the first Ashes Test starts on July 21.

v Australia	Tests	Runs	Average
Michael Vaughan	5	633	63.30
Graham Thorpe	16	1235	45.74
Mark Ramprakash	12	933	42.41
Nasser Hussain	23	1581	38.56
Graham Gooch	9	679	37.72

Winning factor
Only Ken Barrington has a higher average in England¹s post-war Test wins than Thorpe. This could mean Thorpe makes runs when victory is already certain but for most of his career England victories never seemed certain. Instead the statistic suggests two things: that Thorpe has played an unusual number of match-changing innings and that he often played in a weak side. When he failed, England failed too.

In England wins	Innings	Runs	Average
Ken Barrington	42	2319	64.42
Graham Thorpe	62	2940	61.25
Graham Gooch	56	2950	56.73
Len Hutton	42	1957	55.91
John Edrich	35	1771	55.34

(Since World War II. Qualification: 1,000 runs)

Highest of the high fives
Ostensibly Thorpe has been the ultimate No. 4: fearless counter-attacker and rugged scrapper rolled into one small bundle of defiance. But the numbers tell a different story: he is the most productive No. 5 in England¹s Test history by some distance and his average there is much higher than anywhere else. Perhaps he should not be moved up the order to accommodate Kevin Pietersen after all.

England's top No.5s (by runs scored)	Runs	Average	100s/ 50s
Graham Thorpe	3265	54.41	10/ 17
Colin Cowdrey	2377	49.52	6/ 16
David Gower	2131	49.55	7/ 8
Allan Lamb	1803	40.06	5/ 8
Keith Fletcher	1774	46.68	5/ 9

Dashing debutant
At the end of the 20th century English batsmen took to Test cricket like Superman to Kryptonite with one exception. Whereas no other specialist batsman scored more than 33 on debut during the 1990s, Thorpe bashed that fabulous century against the Aussies at Trent Bridge. Sometimes it is safe to judge a book by its cover.

Average debut scores	Australia	England
2000s	51.00	41.87
1990s	46.04	18.21
1980s	36.04	18.75

(Averages cover both the first and second innings of a player's debut Test. They refer only to batsmen from Nos. 1-7.)

Spin master
Thorpe is pretty adept against fast bowling, but his stats against spin are quite awesome. And he's done well in the subcontinent against the slow bowlers as well - the only bowler who has clearly got the better of him is Muttiah Muralitharan.

Since September 2001	Runs/ Dismissals	Average
v Pace	1464/ 30	48.80
v Spin	716/ 11	65.09
v Spin in subcontinent	281/ 7	40.14
v Muralitharan	110/ 5	22.00
v Kumble	68/ 2	34.00

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