England's 170-run win over India in the opening Test at Lord's was tempered with the news that premier batsman Graham Thorpe is taking a break from the game.

Thorpe, 33 on Thursday, recently announced his retirement from one-day international cricket and on Monday followed that by revealing he will not be available for either Surrey or England in the near future.

Upon dropping out of the limited-overs format at the end of this month's NatWest Series, he cited the need to spend more time with his two young children Henry and Amelia in the wake of his divorce from wife Nicky.

Rated by the Australians as England's best player, his place on the Ashes tour this winter is now far from certain.

``I am fully aware of the consequences as far as my England Test place is concerned,'' said Thorpe.

``This will create an opportunity for another player to come into the team and I have had to balance that possibility against the needs of my family.

``Retirement is definitely not in my mind at the moment, I feel that I have plenty more cricket in me at the highest level and hopefully this break will recharge my batteries and allow me to resume my career once my domestic situation has been resolved.''

Thorpe's 77-Test England career has been fragmented since his debut in 1993. He returned from tours of South Africa and Australia with injuries, in 1995-96 and 1998-99 respectively, and then opted out of the 1999-2000 tour to South Africa.

Subsequently overlooked for five matches in the summer of 2000, Thorpe was undoubtedly Nasser Hussain's side's top performer in Pakistan and Sri Lanka the following winter.

But a calf injury and a broken finger curtailed his presence last summer in the triangular one-day tournament and the Ashes series.

Then, in India last December, he left the tour on the eve of the second Test at Ahmedabad because of problems in his private life.

Things appeared on the up when he scored the second-fastest double century in Test cricket history in New Zealand in March and added an 11th century against Sri Lanka at Edgbaston.

But he cut short his one-day international career a little over a fortnight ago.

``I want to make my children the number one priority in my life and give myself more time to readjust to my changed domestic circumstances.

``I have every intention of continuing my career as a professional cricketer,'' he added on Monday.

``But I am feeling very worn down and burnt out by events off the field which have become a major distraction for me and prevented me focusing fully on my game.''

That was apparent at Lord's this week when he made two single figure scores and dropped a relatively straightforward slip catch offered by Sachin Tendulkar.

But Hussain countered: ``Take everything off the field away and he is so strong mentally that he can just rock up and get 100.

``It's obvious that Graham has not been mentally right for this Test match. He has just had a bad week at the office and when you have a bad week at the office and everything else is going on it's really bad.''

Hussain was named man of the match for his first-innings 155 but the captain insisted the hard work had been done by his inexperiened attack, superbly led by Matthew Hoggard, who broke the 50-wicket barrier in just his 12th Test.

``To bowl out a batting line-up of that quality on a wicket that flat for 221 was phenomenal,'' said Hussain.

``No matter who scored runs, the fact that we opened up a 266-run lead was crucial. I think that was about as good as we could possibly play and the bowlers deserve the credit as their first-innings performance gave us enough time to bowl them out again.

``Matthew Hoggard bowled beautifully again, he could easily have been man of the match and probably should have been and that would have been two awards out of three for him.

``He is a guy that keeps stepping up to the mark in the absence of Darren Gough and Andrew Caddick.''

India captain Sourav Ganguly conceded that England had outplayed his side for the majority of the match.

``We lost the match in only getting 221 in the first innings on a good batting wicket.

``England played better than us for the most part in the Test and I agree that we were outplayed.''

The only other repercussions for England will be fitness checks on Andrew Flintoff (groin) and Simon Jones (side strain).

29 Jul, 2002