BBC SPORT | Cricket | England | Stewart keeps coming back



By Pat Murphy BBC cricket reporter

If anyone believes that Alec Stewart has enjoyed a gilded passage through a glittering career, they ought to examine it in closer detail.

You can take his talent for granted, as you should with anyone who has played more than a hundred Tests.

Alec Stewart
Stewart proved England's saviour again on Thursday
But no one ought to under-estimate Stewart's stickability, his abiding awareness that he alone knows the best time to bow out of international cricket.

That hundred in the last Test at Old Trafford was typical of him.

He had bridled in the build-up at the suggestion that he was under pressure for his place, with James Foster on the mend after his broken arm.

But there was no doubt that it was time for Stewart to deliver, even if his batting opportunities had been limited to just three innings so far in the series.

Stewart responded with a typically fluent century and it would be astonishing if he doesn't hold his place for the rest of the summer.

His two remaining ambitions are to be in an England side that regains the Ashes and also wins the World Cup.

Those daunting challenges lie ahead of him in the next nine months and if he has anything to do with it, young Foster will have to bide his time a while longer.

Stewart is not the type to indulge in breast-beating predictions about his worth or how long he can remain a major performer.

He knows that when you are nudging 40, the reflexes can soon wither away, so he will just continue preparing in the professional manner that has become legendary among his team-mates.

He knew that he was taking a chance when he opted out of the Indian tour before Christmas, to spend time with his family and to undergo a tennis elbow operation that was long overdue.

When we met up at various stages in the winter, he'd say, "It's up to the selectors, but if they decide to pick their best 11 at the start of next season, I want to force their hand."

Well Foster's broken arm at the start of May did that, but Stewart did his utmost to justify the decision to reinstate him, despite much public opprobrium.

Doubters silenced

Stewart has long been fireproof mentally. During the mid-1980s, when he was the best young England batsman in the country, he had to wait until he was 26 before he was called up by his country.

And surely the fact that his father, Micky was England coach at the time did him no favours.

Soon the slurs of possible nepotism were laid to rest, as he came up through a hard school.

In only his second Test, he climbed into Desmond Haynes in Trinidad when he accused West Indies of deliberate time-wasting on the field. He was right, too.

In 1996, he looked to be on the way out for England at the age of 33. He only made the Lord's Test against India because Nick Knight broke a finger.

Stewart dismissed in Durban
Stewart finished the 1990s with an impressive 95 in Durban
Stewart made his own luck, and finished the year with the highest runs aggregate in Test cricket.

This came after grave concerns over his mother's health during the tour to South Africa a few months earlier, followed by a brain tumour suffered by his wife.

Three years later, he lost the England captaincy after an ignominious early exit from the World Cup.

And he then scored nought and one in the Edgbaston Test against New Zealand, as well as dropping two easy catches.

Stewart admits he was then under more pressure for his place, but he ended that year with a superb 95 in Durban, averaging 42 in the series against South Africa.

By the end of that year, Stewart had scored more runs in Test cricket in that decade than any other player.

So it is never a wise notion to write off Alec Stewart.

How many more runs would he have scored if his opening partnership with Mike Atherton hadn't been disrupted by the need to keep wicket?

Stewart has been England's best all-rounder since Ian Botham and maybe he won't be properly appreciated until at last he calls it a day.

Pat Murphy is co-writing Alec Stewart's autobiography, to be published next summer.