England's finest batsman of the last decade, Graham Thorpe's achievements on the pitch have often contrasted wildly with his personal problems away from cricket, where drink and depression have often combined to send him spiralling off the rails. This is his powerful, painfully honest life story. Graham Thorpe has been the lynchpin of the England team and at the vanguard of world cricket for more than a decade. Yet the national press hounded him as 'English cricket's most disturbed player', in 1999 he returned home from the Caribbean weeks before his team-mates; a year later he declined to tour South Africa in order to spend more time with his young family; and in 2001 he returned early from India in a vain attempt to salvage an already ruined marriage, four years after his own infidelities while on tour in New Zealand made tabloid headlines. The following summer his ex-wife was on the verge of emigrating to South Africa with his two children, and Thorpe was accused of 'betraying' England when he announced he was quitting Test cricket, only to change his mind a fortnight later.

With painful candour and often unexpected humour, Thorpe dissects his career in cricket and the inner recesses of his private life: the impact of his bitter divorce; the suicidal depression that afflicted him in his darkest hours; the reasons why he needed to 'save himself' by withdrawing from past England tours; the elation of his magnificent century on his comeback Test at the Oval in 2003; and his fresh outlook in life with a new partner after confronting his own failings and past troubles. Twelve years on from his Test debut against Australia, Thorpe took the decision to retire from international cricket after the disappointment of his controversial non-selection for the Ashes 2005 tour. Hero or villain? Thorpe's life story will go some way toward resolving one of the biggest conundrums in English cricket in recent times.

2006-10-20 A very personal autobiography

Unlike the recent autobiographies by Mike Atherton and Nasser Hussain, Graham Thorpe's tome does not offer a detailed match-by-match analysis of English cricket over his playing career. Indeed cricket is not the primary motivation behind Thorpe writing his memoirs.

The main raison d'etre of Rising From The Ashes is for Graham to tell his side of the story of his disintegrating marriage, the stress of which twice led him to withdraw from the England team for lengthy periods. In doing this, it candidly illustrates the mountains of despair that even a highly successful sportsman can reach when faced with insurmountable personal problems. Although it can be argued that these lengthy ruminations are tabloidesque, Thorpe should also be praised for his honesty - unlike his ex-wife who comes out of the book with very little credit as she continues to deny Graham basic access to their two children.

Despite Thorpe's failing marriage and battle to see his children being the main motivation behind him writing his memoirs, Rising From The Ashes also offers an interesting though slightly disjointed analysis of his cricketing career. Not as detailed or definitive as Atherton or Hussain's books but it never would have been as Graham was England captain on only a couple of occasions.

Rising From The Ashes is a passionate page-turner though not the book to read first if you are looking for an insider's account of the England cricket team during the 90s and early noughties. An honest and almost uncomfortably personal sporting autobiography.