New Delhi, Aug 8 : Legendary Australia cricketer Ricky Ponting has paid a heartfelt tribute to former England batter and coach Graham Thorpe, who passed away earlier this week at the age of 55 due to a long-standing illness.

Thorpe played 100 Tests for England between 1993 and 2005, amassing 6,744 runs, including 16 centuries, at an average of 44.66. He also played 82 ODIs for England, making 2,380 runs at an average of 37.18, including 21 half-centuries, apart from representing Surrey in the domestic circuit from 1988 to 2005.

'I had a bit of interaction with him during my time at Surrey. Remembering my last year of first-class cricket, (I) was actually playing for Surrey and I only played maybe half a dozen first-class games.'

'But I became a capped player at the Surrey County Cricket Club, which is something that I'm extremely proud of. And obviously thought he (Thorpe) was a Surrey legend, an English legend," said Ponting in the latest episode of The ICC Review show.

Ponting recalled that his commentary teammates at Sky Sports in the UK used to talk about Thorpe and were in awe of him. 'I've heard Wasim Akram describe him as the best left-hand batsman that he ever bowled to. A lot of his English teammates called him 'the little genius' for how good he was.'

'And some of the guys that I work with in the UK now were extremely close with him. I mentioned Alec Stewart before, he was the Director of Cricket and head coach at Surrey when I was there. Guys like Ian Ward, with whom I work at Sky, played a lot with him at Surrey. Nasser (Hussain) and Athers (Michael Atherton) obviously were extremely close with him as well.'

Ponting, who closely felt the loss of his former Australia teammates Shane Warne and Andrew Symonds in 2022, said he made sure to be in touch with his colleagues in England as soon as he heard the news of Thorpe's passing.

'As soon as the news broke, I made sure I got on the phone to those guys straight away, because it's only a couple of years ago that it happened with me with Warney (Shane Warne) and Simmo (Andrew Symonds) and those guys.'

'It seems like this big world of cricket, but when you lose something like that, the cricket world really shrinks down and everyone looks after each other. It's just another one of those really, really sad days as far as the game of cricket is concerned.'

'To his family and everyone close to him, think from everyone, it's not just me, but from everyone in Australia that had anything to do with Graham Thorpe, our deepest condolences go out to you all.'

/IANS