(posted 7945 days ago)SPORT: Stewart steps up to a new level
By Rob Steen
Financial Times; Jul 19, 2002Before trading in liniment and jockstrap for laptop and press pass, Angus Fraser dispensed praise as he conceded runs: infrequently and grudgingly. Alec Stewart can thus take special satisfaction from the fact that Fraser considers that he has never played "with a more model professional" than the England all-rounder.
Barring the sort of mishap that befell others whenever his own future was in doubt, Stewart, 39, will embark on his 119th Test on Thursday when the first chapter of a four-Test series against India opens at Lord's. In so doing he will overtake Graham Gooch as England's most capped player.
Why does English cricket love Stewart? Let us count the reasons. Multi-faceted batsman, wicket-keeper par excellence, fitness fiend, tireless cheerleader, indestructible force, omnipresent inspiration. Not since another smart Alec (Guinness) played eight members of the D'Ascoyne clan in Kind Hearts and Coronets has an Englishman turned diversity into such an art form.
Yet the stage for Stewart's finest exposition of stiff-upper-lipped steel was neither the Kensington Oval - where his twin centuries in 1994 brought about the West Indies' first defeat in Barbados for 59 years - nor even his beloved Kennington Oval, but Southwark Cathedral.
Leading the illustrious array of mourners at Monday's memorial for Ben Hollioake, who died in March at the tender age of 24, was John Major, the former prime minister. The first to wipe eyes and clear throat, nevertheless, was Stewart, an opener by trade and spirit, a chap wholly averse to waste. "Death is nothing at all," he began, quoting Henry Scott Holland. "I have only slipped away into the next room."
To be a survivor means dicing with the odd precipice, and Stewart has recovered from many a seemingly fatal stumble. Indeed, rarely as he allows that immaculately sculpted public mask to slip, cast him back to India's last tour of England and a wry smile might prove tricky even for him to suppress.
In that summer of 1996 Stewart lost his place for the first Test, the legacy of two indifferent years, only to regain it immediately when Nick Knight broke a finger. Far from being over, his international career, it transpired, was not even halfway done. Even the captaincy came his way.
Then, this spring, the brink beckoned again. Having opted out of the winter tour of India, Stewart was replaced behind the stumps by James Foster. The Essex youth did enough to warrant a central contract at the older man's expense.
Foster, though, broke an arm before the series against Sri Lanka, Stewart won another reprieve, notched his 15th Test hundred at Old Trafford and made himself more indispensable than ever. Which leaves the selectors in something of a pickle.
Stewart's glovework remains superior to all rivals bar Gloucestershire's Jack Russell. In terms of batting, his total of 7,632 Test runs is exceeded by only four Englishmen.
By consistently justifying his presence in two disciplines, a luxury England have not enjoyed since Ian Botham went off the boil in the mid-1980s, Stewart's presence facilitates the inclusion of an extra bowler. With the attack short of teeth and an Ashes tour and a World Cup looming, this is more than a bonus.
Of the potential successors to Stewart's place, Foster, Glamorgan's Mark Wallace and the Sussex duo of Matt Prior and Tim Ambrose all follow the same pattern: solid strokes but wobbly hands. Of the young contenders targeted, only Durham's Andy Pratt, argues Adrian Aymes, Hampshire's veteran stumper, boasts the traditional skills in the requisite abundance.
Traditionally, excellence with the gloves has been overlooked in favour of batting ability. Forty years ago, Northants' Keith Andrew was repeatedly passed over in favour of quasi-keepers who could be relied on for a few more runs.
Which makes Stewart so special. Finding a replacement promises to be no less forlorn a task than uncovering a new Botham. Yet by continuing to defy time - and, given that fitness regime and general abstemiousness, another couple of years at the top cannot be ruled out - Stewart is performing yet another service for his country: buying time.