Thorpe a changed man

"The ubiquitous Graham Thorpe, bet you never thought you'd hear that," begins Mark Nicholas in his piece about the former England batsman who has transformed his life (and himself) from the introvert of the 1990s to an extrovert, in The Daily Telegraph.

Having listened harder than we might have supposed of him in the past, Thorpe is now applying all he has learnt to the TMS invitation, studio and live work with Sky, the occasional gig with Fox Sports in Oz and a worthy column in Spin magazine that this month calls for yellow cards and a sin-bin for misbehaviour on the field of play. Go get 'em, Graham.

But Thorpe's biggest deal right now is his life in Sydney with Amanda, the lawyer he was finally able to marry in Bangkok earlier this year. If ever a girl made something of the boy it is Amanda. From the pain of a public and turbulent separation from his first wife Nicky, has come a near perfect after-life. Thorpe was a cricketer for whom the future held much dread and is a now a former cricketer with myriad opportunities at his feet. He has just been appointed assistant coach of New South Wales to Matthew Mott, who took the coaching job when Trevor Bayliss was seduced by Sri Lanka.