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I just want the best England team, the best players out there and Graham Thorpe at the moment is probably in that XI."So with a few caveats, Vaughan could not have done much more to nudge the selectors. They would not be so foolish to go public but the suspicion is that they were miffed, though some were more miffed than others.Thorpe remains available for selection for the rest of the summer, ready, nay eager, to play his role in the attempt to beat Australia. It could be said that he is wise to plan for his future and his mind will be at least partly free from the uncertainty that can dog sports-men in their twilight years.Equally it may drift to distant, fresh horizons, and Thorpe's mind has been known to drift before. Ideally, he would have preferred to keep his plans quiet but it has been indicated that they would have become known in Sydney, which might have made him look almost duplicitous.The selectors will pick him, partly on form, more on experience It will help that the captain wants him.
Suddenly the whole thing crystallised.Only those personally close to him can have known. England's captain, Michael Vaughan, coach Duncan Fletcher and chairman of selectors David Graveney did not. On Wednesday, the very day before the international season began, it was announced that Thorpe would be taking up a coaching-cum-playing role in Australia with New South Wales next January. Perhaps it should be called a school of Thorpe. Whether it will gain much more support, certainly among those who matter, is doubtful, but overnight England's quest for the Ashes has been made to look trickier, if that is possible. It was widely assumed, if not known, that Graham Thorpe would abandon his international batting career at the end of this summer. He is 35, embarking on a happy new personal life and knows he should not be hanging around too long. It would, of course, take a hard-hearted selector to ditch him before his 100th Test appearance, which could come at the Riverside on Friday.A wide assumption is not hard fact.
There is a school of thought, formed a little while back but which added a few more followers last week, that it is time to say hail and farewell to England's No 5 batsman Perhaps it should be called a school of Thorpe. Any fewer than 10 overs and they would have returned the lot. It is a generous but understandable gesture which might cost nearly £200,000. This post has not exactly become notorious for stretching the England and Wales Cricket Board's jobs advertising budget to breaking point, or indeed stretching it at all.Maynard has benefited from his close association with England's coach, Duncan Fletcher, during Fletcher's time at Glamorgan.
