TWELVE
ALEC STEWART
‘The fact I’d lost four Ashes series as a player shaped my plans and my beliefs about how we were to go about things.’
Rarely have the Three Lions of England been more resplendently displayed than on the puffed-out chest of Alec Stewart. Stewart loved playing for his country and, while the captaincy was not something he coveted, it was the greatest honour anyone could bestow upon him.
It nearly came his way when previously up for grabs in 1993, but Stewart was seen as being from the same mould as the outgoing Graham Gooch at a time when England desperately needed a new direction, so Michael Atherton was preferred. But five years on, at the age of thirty-five and having established himself as one of the key performers in the England side, Stewart was ready to answer the call after Atherton had called it a day in the West Indies. ‘If it had been offered to me in 1993, I would have taken it, as I don’t think it’s something you turn down on a full-time appointment,’ Stewart said. ‘But I would have taken it knowing that I was still inexperienced at international level and still making my way. So it might have been a blessing in disguise not to have got it then. Certainly when I took it on in 1998 I was more experienced and I felt ready to do the job. I was the senior player in the dressing-room. The timing was spot on.’
Stewart had captained every Surrey age group side he’d ever played in, from their under-12 squad through to the Surrey Young Cricketers. He was more than just the best player. His scrupulous manner and squeaky clean image meant he was always on course to captain his county at first-class level, something that duly happened in 1992 and by which time he was already an established member of the England side.
Stewart had been given his England bow on Gooch’s first tour as captain in 1989–90. He made his Test debut in an against-the-odds win against the West Indies in Jamaica and although his record from that series was modest, the example set by Gooch as captain stayed with him. Gooch was big on physical fitness and meticulous preparation, and together with the manager, who just happened to be Stewart’s father Micky, imposed a tough training regime that was not to everyone’s liking. Stewart, who enjoyed the hard physical work and continually strived to better himself, was the management’s biggest fan. ‘It was the first time that England had got into scientific preparation, thinking about attaining proper fitness and how to maintain it,’ Stewart said. ‘Looking back on all that, I can’t understand how anyone could criticise Gooch and Dad for pushing us harder than any other England squad. Such professionalism is the norm nowadays and the two of them were ahead of their time. If a great player wanted to improve continuously and give himself the best possible chance by preparing properly, who could seriously disagree?’
By the time Stewart took charge, in 1998, England cricket had finally bought into the fact that it was a professional game where fitness and preparation were key elements of a sport that had continued to get faster and more physically demanding. ‘Keith Fletcher and Ray Illingworth had come in after Goochie and Dad and there was a return to more of an old-school approach,’ Stewart said. ‘But then David Lloyd took over in 1997 and moved it forward again, which suited me down to the ground. There was a different generation of players, too, who didn’t have any problem with this way of doing things. It was second nature.’
My own first year as a professional cricketer in 1992 coincided with Daryl Foster’s appointment as Kent coach. He had been successful with Western Australia and based a lot of his success on tough physical conditioning. Perhaps he didn’t really understand the long grind of a county season, pushing us too hard at times, but it was something – as Stewart says – that my generation grew up with. Several of the senior players found it hard, recounting tales of when Derek Underwood had taken a detour from a pre-season jog into the pub opposite the ground, but as youngsters on the professional circuit we’d known no different.
As captain of England, Stewart didn’t have to deal with the Gowers and Bothams, who had been successful doing things very much on their terms. Gooch had been too inflexible with some of these characters, insisting that they abide by the new way of doing things when it was foreign to them, but for Stewart the senior players took such preparation as being part and parcel of being a professional sportsman. It was also tough for players to complain about their workload when the captain was pumping out the miles in training, scoring runs and keeping wicket all day. That’s before taking into account the decisions on and off the field he had to make, all of which he’d be accountable for. Stewart was a cricket machine, who never asked of his players what he wasn’t prepared to do himself.
As a player, he had never moaned about his lot, despite having been messed around more than most. He’d accepted the dual role of batsman/keeper that he’d been given under Gooch and Atherton without a hint of a grumble, even though his preference was to be an opening batsman. His record as just an opening batsman – as he’ll take great delight in telling you – is better than Geoff Boycott’s, yet so often when England were behind in a series he’d take over the gloves from an axed Jack Russell and move down the order to accommodate an extra batsman or bowler.
In the Pakistan series in 1992, for instance, Stewart scored 190 in the first Test at Edgbaston, his fourth hundred in five Tests as an opener, before carrying his bat in making a valuable 69 in the second innings of the second Test at Lord’s. Pakistan sneaked home in a thriller in that match to lead the series 1–0; by the fourth Test, Stewart was keeping wicket and batting in the middle order to lesser effect.
Stewart had always done as he was asked for the good of the team. By the time Atherton called it a day in Antigua in late March 1998 he was cemented as the team’s wicket-keeper and had learned how to perform both roles to the best of his ability. He was already a hugely respected senior member of the side, which meant he could just be himself as captain. ‘My big thing is whether you’re junior player, senior player or captain you have to first and foremost get your own game in order so you warrant a place in the side,’ he said. ‘The way you go about your job should gain the respect of others. If you then become captain, you’re already in a reasonably strong position if you have to tell someone they’re not playing or that they’ve got to do this or that.’
Stewart had seen a lot of players come and go in his time for England, many of whom flattered to deceive. His way would be to pick players who would give 100 per cent all of the time, even if that meant leaving players with more ability out of the team. To Stewart, character was everything. ‘My strategy was that I wanted people I could trust going on to the field of play with me,’ he said. ‘I wanted to know what their par performance was. Some players have a few great days and a lot of poor days but somehow live off the odd great performance. I wanted players who would give me a consistent level of performance. In an average side, there isn’t room for players who are brilliant one minute and poor the next. I’d much rather have ten other blokes from whom I knew what I’d get day in day out. I’d pick players who I knew would be trying the whole time for me. I didn’t pick Phil Tufnell and I didn’t pick Andy Caddick.’
There was more than a touch of the military about Stewart. He liked order, an all-for-one mentality and players like himself, who tried hard, got on with the job and who solved problems rather than created them. Just as Gooch didn’t pick Gower for the tour of India in 1992–93 even though he was one of his best players, Stewart had grown tired of Caddick despite his obvious match-winning ability. ‘Stewie could not understand how someone with as much natural ability as Caddick, who should be getting 400 Test wickets, would make so many excuses,’ Hussain said. ‘Stewie was not an excuses man.’
Stewart had learned from some of Gooch’s mistakes, however. Where his mentor had treated everyone the same, Stewart was more sensitive to an individual’s needs. He combined the ‘up-and-at-’em’ motivational speeches and ‘lead from the front’ style with softer interpersonal skills. He wanted to find out what made his players tick and how he could best help them fulfil their potential. ‘In my first meeting with the team, I said, “I’ve picked you all because I rate you all and you are the kind of people I want to take on to the field with me – ‘100 per centers’. I’ll back you to the hilt so long as I feel you’re giving me everything and producing. We are not all going to produce on the same day, but you have to produce because that’s the nature of the game. More importantly I expect the effort and the approach to be spot on.” I said that to everyone and then I spoke to players individually. I asked them how they liked to be treated. Some of the guys might admit things to me on a one-to-one basis that they wouldn’t say in front of teammates. Things like they don’t respond well to a rocket or would prefer a softer approach.’
The best man-managers have an instinct about how best to treat people. In conversations about their work, they’ll get a feel for how to motivate and what mode of response to adopt in different situations with any given person. Stewart, in his typical no-nonsense way, cuts to the chase and simply asks them how they’d like this to be done. It demonstrates good awareness about the need to treat the players as individuals and could open up an interesting conversation with a player, but I’m not sure it’s a question that Mike Brearley or Michael Vaughan would ask. For starters, there’s always the danger that a player’s response might not actually be in their best interests. Few are likely to say they respond well to a rocket, when on an occasion it might be exactly what’s needed. By asking such a direct question, it’s also admitting you’re not sure in the first place, while the player’s answer might straitjacket your mode of response in future. That said, it’s better to ask than to guess, so fair play to Stewart for his straightforward communication style.
Stewart made an immediate impression in his first series against South Africa, fighting back from 1–0 down to take the honours 2–1. The turning point occurred at Old Trafford, where he played one of the great captain’s knocks in scoring a brilliant 164 after England had followed on, which together with the stoic defiance of Fraser and Croft saved the game. It was an England performance full of character and said a lot about Stewart’s captaincy.
His leadership skills were to the fore again in the deciding fifth Test at Headingley, as an enthralling match went down to the wire. South Africa, needing 219 for victory, were 185 for 8 in their second innings at the scheduled close of the fourth day, but with an extra half-hour looming (which either side can call for if they have a legitimate chance of winning that evening) Stewart used all his cricketing nous to get his team off the pitch.
By his own admission, he was not as tactically astute as a Hussain or a Brearley, but he was streetwise and recognised the fact his bowlers were exhausted and South Africa were hesitating. ‘I noticed their twelfth man, Paul Adams, on the boundary edge, carrying a fresh pair of batting gloves for Shaun Pollock and guessed that he was bringing out a message to tell the batters to claim the extra half-hour,’ Stewart said. ‘So when the last scheduled over was bowled and the batters started to walk off, I whipped off the bails sharpish and handed them over to the umpire. The umpires asked what I wanted to do and I said straight away, “We’ll go off.”’
Stewart was one of those canny ‘old pros’ who never missed a trick. He was a believer in letting the umpires make decisions, yet would use everything he knew to steer things in his and his team’s favour. His ‘butter wouldn’t melt’ routine was famous on the circuit, particularly if he got a faint nick to the keeper while batting. He would avoid all eye contact with the umpire, scratch his guard and perhaps pat the pitch as if nothing had happened. Forget having a net at pre-season, every aspiring young batsman should watch a video of Stewart in Oscar-winning mode. He was sharp as a tack. If he was given out, however, he’d quickly tuck the bat under the arm in that trademark manner of his and quick-march unquestioningly off the arena.
I was fortunate to play against Stewart on several occasions. My maiden first-class hundred was scored against Surrey with ‘The Gaffer’ behind the stumps for company. There was no sledging or intimidating banter, just the odd ‘shot’ from under his breath when standing up to the spinners. He was a player we all enjoyed playing against because he appreciated good cricket and never felt the need to throw his weight around at a slightly lower level than he was used to.
His decision to get his players off the field at Headingley proved correct as a refreshed England wrapped up victory inside 30 minutes of the fifth day, Gough sparking the celebrations on his home ground by trapping Makhaya Ntini lbw. It was England’s first five-Test series win at home in thirteen years and should have been a launching pad for their assault on the Ashes Down Under that coming winter.
Instead, rather peculiarly, the ECB had organised a one-off Test against Sri Lanka at the Oval. A dry pitch offered nothing for England’s seamers but plenty for spinner Muttiah Muralitharan, who took 16 wickets in the match to bowl Sri Lanka to a famous victory. It was not what England’s captain needed ahead of the hardest tour of them all.
Atherton, who had led the previous Ashes tour party in 1994–95 with a side that had started as huge underdogs, like Stewart’s was about to do, had been able to convince himself that he had a chance of winning against Australia. Stewart, by contrast, was much more realistic. He had often been on the receiving end of a hiding from the old enemy and knew his team would be hard-pushed to stay in the contest. Australia would be without Warne, who had undergone shoulder surgery, but in Stuart MacGill they had a more than able replacement and remained a formidable side. ‘My big thing in terms of a plan of how to take on Australia was to stay in the game as long as possible,’ he said. ‘I was very honest in my own mind about my team taking on Mark Taylor’s team. Man for man there was a big gulf, so we had to hang in there and if we got ahead we needed to recognise it and not let up. That was my plan. There was no point me going in saying we’re going to get 600 and bowl them out twice because it wasn’t going to happen.
‘They were used to winning. The fact I’d lost four Ashes series as a player shaped my plans and my beliefs about how we were to go about things. If we could get five boring draws, so be it; four draws and a scrappy win – even better. But I wasn’t going in there saying that we were about to take them on at every turn and beat them at their own game of getting 500-plus and blasting the opposition out. That approach was reflected in the players that we picked: scrappers, fighters who would give 100 per cent for the cause.
‘Before the Ashes at the press conference, when the journalists asked if we were going to win, I said that we’d give it our best shot and that my team would be giving 100 per cent effort at all times. I said that the players would give me and their country everything. I said I was going out there looking to win and expecting to win every game. That’s the way I play. “But how many of you in this room think we will win the Ashes?” I asked the media throng. Not a single hand went up. So I asked them to remember that fact when they were writing about us. I don’t think they liked it, but I was just trying to get the point across that actually we were going there as huge underdogs.’
On the one hand, this was a clever tactic from Stewart. By publicly assuming the role of underdogs he was effectively taking the pressure off himself and his team. The danger with this approach, and my issue with it, is that you can end up giving the opposition too much respect and not backing yourselves enough. Imagine being a boxer getting into the ring with an opponent you thought was probably too good. There’s not much chance of success.
Belief is such a crucial part of a sportsman’s mentality. You have to believe you’re going to achieve a task in order to stand any chance of accomplishing it. As captain, part of your role is to bolster your players’ belief so they are capable – to use another boxing analogy – of punching above their weight. The best man-managers and leaders, as with the best coaches and trainers, possess the ability to inspire. They lift people’s horizons above and beyond what is probable and practical; they make them reach for the stars.
Stewart was a fine leader by example. He performed a multitude of different roles unflinchingly. He was a tough, canny, battle-hardened professional who was made of the right stuff and would never say die whatever the situation. And he dragged every last ounce of effort out of his players, who had nothing but the utmost respect for their captain. But did he ever convince them they could win an Ashes series? Was his team ever in with a shout of bringing home cricket’s oldest prize or were they there simply to give a good account of themselves?
For all Stewart’s numerous qualities as a leader, his biggest weakness seems to be not rating his own team highly enough. For an attacking player who liked to take it to the opposition with bat in hand, it seems strange that his captaincy mindset is on the conservative side. This was a player who had met the firepower of the West Indies head-on in Barbados in 1993–94, scoring two hundreds in a famous England win. Against Australia, however, the idea was just to stay in the game for as long as possible. Stewart’s masterplan had not evolved much from that of Bob Willis 16 years earlier.
Stewart’s pragmatism was reflected in the players he selected for the tour. Ability was important, but he wanted the solid characters who had delivered for him against South Africa. That meant there was still no room for Tufnell and Caddick, who had bowled England to victory in the last meeting between the two sides at the Oval in 1997. The pair shared 19 wickets, albeit in a dead rubber, as far as the series was concerned, and had demonstrated that on their day they were good enough to bowl out the world’s best players. Caddick, furthermore, had enjoyed a bumper season in 1998, taking 100 first-class wickets for his county, Somerset.
As someone who got out twice to Caddick a few weeks before the touring party was picked, I remember being staggered that he was not going to Australia. He had bowled me the best first over I’d ever faced in my first-class career. He was at his peak in terms of pace and fitness and was simply unplayable. Three 88 mph, high-bouncing away swingers beat me outside my off stump, and then the one that went the other way nearly cut me in half before he found my outside edge with the perfect leg-cutter. ‘Even with the benefit of hindsight I’m still not sure whether I would have picked Caddick,’ Stewart said. ‘To accommodate him on the Ashes tour I would have had to leave one of the guys out who had performed for me that summer, which wasn’t something I was prepared to do.
‘As for Tufnell, he was a fine bowler who could bowl sides out, but I thought he often needed things to be in his favour or to go his way. On flat wickets when a team was 300 for 1 he wasn’t always putting his hand up to say he was ready to bowl. Against Australia, who were a better team than us, I wasn’t prepared to take a gamble on a man who might do it but I couldn’t guarantee would do it.’
Stewart did take Mark Ramprakash and Graeme Hick, however – two batsmen who had been in and out of the England side since their debut in 1991 under Gooch. ‘I didn’t see them as a Caddick or Tufnell,’ Stewart said. ‘I thought they were two fantastic players who I could help turn into top-class performers at the highest level. I was convinced they would turn the corner. They knew how much I rated them before I became captain and I just said to them to pretend it’s a Middlesex shirt or a Worcestershire shirt.
‘I told Ramps I thought he was the best player in the country. You’ve got to keep telling them that and try to relax them. Playing for England seems like it’s everything, but it’s not absolutely everything. You have to offer them all the help words, videos, sports psychologists – I’m not big on them, but if they work for someone then great – but ultimately I believe that you have to sort it out yourself and be accountable for your performances.’
Ramprakash made the starting XI for the first Test at Brisbane, making a valuable 69 not out in England’s first innings, as they replied to Australia’s total of 485. England had started the match well, Alan Mullally knocking over their talented top order to take 5 for 105, but Steve Waugh and Ian Healy scored hundreds in their contrasting styles to repair the damage. Reflecting on the first Test of the series, the frustration is evident in Stewart’s tone. ‘One area I thought we should be able to match them – and I believe this in any form of cricket – was fielding,’ Stewart said. ‘There’s no excuse why you can’t catch catches or save your runs. But we shelled some vital catches, particularly in Brisbane, and missed a chance to run out Steve Waugh at a crucial stage. We were right in that game at 200 for 5 and if we’d taken the run out and Fraser had caught Healy in the deep they would probably have been 300 or so all out and we would have been bossing the game.’
My earlier point about belief and mindset is apposite here. The players had effectively conditioned their minds to hang in games. They were expecting to need to show some steely resolve with their backs to the wall. Yet, suddenly, they found themselves in charge of the game with Australia on the run and they blew the chance. Mullally simply had to collect a throw from the deep at the bowler’s end, as Waugh was yards short struggling back for two, but the big fast bowler’s impetuosity got the better of him and he broke the wicket before taking the ball. Fraser, meanwhile, would have gobbled up Healy’s top-edged heave 99 times out of 100. Butcher made a hundred in England’s reply, but a total of 375 left the tourists 110 adrift on first innings. Michael Slater’s swashbuckling 113 allowed Taylor to set an academic target of 348 and at 179 for 6 England were grateful that an electrical storm saved them from a rampaging MacGill.
Stewart was to enjoy no such luck in the second Test in Perth as Taylor’s seam attack rattled England out for 112 and 191. Stewart gave a debut to his Surrey colleague Alex Tudor, whose first scalp was none other than Steve Waugh, whom he impressed, finishing with figures of 4 for 89, but Australia won convincingly by seven wickets. Tudor’s selection ahead of Fraser, so long one of England’s finest servants, was one of Stewart’s toughest captaincy decisions. ‘It was probably one tour too far for Gus,’ Stewart said. ‘He could have been one of England’s greatest bowlers ever before he suffered his hip injury in 1990–91. He did brilliantly in the West Indies and against South Africa, but on Australian pitches their batters pulled him off his length and he didn’t have any sideways movement so I left him out in favour of Tudor’s extra pace. To tell a bloke that I’d played a lot of cricket with and rated highly that he wasn’t playing was basically finishing his career. It was tough.
‘Normally I would pick the team the night before the game, but I wanted to sleep on it as it was a massive decision. I went to his hotel room in the morning to give him the bad news and he was distraught. But these are the things you have to do as captain. You have to front up, be honest and be straight with people. If you beat around the bush, you get found out. Until you’ve captained people you don’t realise that this is what the job’s about. It’s not about moving a fielder a bit squarer in the covers, it’s about your people skills.’
The toughest decision of my captaincy career at Kent involved a similar scenario in which I had to tell Paul Nixon he was being released by the club. Nixon had only been at the club three years, but he was a popular guy and a fantastically loyal servant who’d won many games for us with his combative style. Halfway through 2002, though, Geraint Jones emerged from the second team to challenge Nixon’s keeping position and, while Nixon held on to the gloves for the remainder of the season, Jones forced his way in as a batsman.
We were aware that if we couldn’t guarantee Jones first team cricket the following year another county would snap him up, so we were faced with a position where we had to make a choice between two very fine and committed cricketers. If they’d been batsmen or bowlers, you’d have bent over backwards to keep both. Having seen Jones play, I was happy to recommend him to the committee as a quality keeper-batsman who was a legitimate rival to Nixon. Like the incumbent, he had boundless energy and, importantly for me, had proven – again like Nixon – that he would play selflessly for the team.
The week before the end of the season the decision was made to let Nixon go. We were challenging for second place in the Championship and some of the committee thought it best not to tell him until after our crucial game at Headingley. I said I was not prepared to stand next to someone I cared about and pretend everything was OK. That was not the way to do things. The guy had a right to know. So I called him to my room on the evening prior to the Yorkshire game and told him the bad news, and that I had been involved in the decision. It was not a time for any cowardly passing of the buck. I wanted him to play the next day but said it was perfectly understandable if he didn’t want to. He said he’d let me know by breakfast.
To his credit, Nixon couldn’t have handled the situation any better. He told me he’d play, but he wanted to address the guys before the start of play. He told them what had happened but that he wanted to finish at Kent on a winning note. He then wished Jones all the best. There were tears in the eyes of quite a few players and they were charged up to win the game for him. Steve Waugh, who made a brilliant hundred in the first innings, dropped down the order so Nixon could hit the winning runs in the second.
Fraser did play once more in the series, at Melbourne, but Stewart showed he could make the tough decisions, and while Fraser was obviously devastated to be left out at Perth he respected the honest and upfront way Stewart relayed the information. He was no doubt less enamoured a little later on the tour when Darren Gough ribbed him about his bowling figures against Australia ‘A’ in Hobart.
‘Nasser and I had the game off so Atherton captained,’ Stewart explained. ‘We got a big score, with Atherton getting a double-hundred, then they got close to our score and instead of opting to bat out time Athers declared, giving them a run chase on the flattest of pitches. They cruised it just after tea by nine wickets. Greg Blewett smashed it everywhere and Gus went to all parts. Goughie came in to the dressing-room all upbeat, having not played, dressed up as Santa Claus dragging a sack. “Guess what I’ve got in ’ere, lads?” he said. “Gus’s figures – that’s why t’sack is so fookin heavy!” It wasn’t great timing. Yet it brought home to me that the Gus of old would have coped better with the fact it was a flat wicket. He was aware he needed a performance and couldn’t deliver one.’
In the third Test, at Adelaide, Stewart lost an important toss – he would lose all five – and was powerless to stop Justin Langer racking up 179 not out in 40-degree heat. Atherton, Hussain and Ramprakash were the only batsmen to reach double figures, while Stewart, drained from the effort of keeping wicket and captaining under the hot sun, was one of four players knocked over without scoring in England’s reply. England’s captain did show a welcome return to form in the second innings, but his 63 not out could not stave off another straightforward Australian victory.
England had failed to regain the Ashes and Stewart offered apologies to the country in the ensuing press conference. He was gutted but admits he ‘sounded less than convincing’. He was never a fan of press conferences and, despite a wave of conflicting emotions, he was not going to wear his heart on his sleeve. Sleeves were not for hearts, nor for wiping away tears, but for rolling up as a precursor to hard work. Stewart’s men, though, were also made of stern stuff and, like their captain, they never failed to give anything other than 100 per cent. They were rewarded for their efforts in the fourth Test at Melbourne, too, where England’s bowlers conjured the unlikeliest of victories that demonstrated what the Stewart spirit was all about.
Stewart had led the way in the first innings, scoring his first Test hundred against Australia. He had decided to relinquish some responsibility by giving the wicket-keeping duties to Warren Hegg, thus enabling him to return to his favoured opening berth. The results paid dividends. For too long Stewart had refused to accept that batting four, keeping wicket and captaining against Australia in the sapping heat Down Under was too much to handle. He had scored runs in the second innings in Adelaide after retreating to number six, which might have helped in his decision to take some of the workload off himself in Melbourne. Stewart would have been uncomfortable demonstrating anything that could be construed as weakness, so a return to opening the batting was the perfect antidote to any wounded pride.
Stewart counter-attacked fluently after England had been reduced to 4 for 2 by Glenn McGrath, scoring 107 off 160 balls. Ramprakash kept him company to add 119 in good time for the fourth wicket as England made 270. Australia replied with 340 courtesy of Steve Waugh, who found an unlikely ally down the order in MacGill, the pair adding 88. England’s 244 at the second time of asking left Australia a target of 175.
Taylor, Slater, Langer and Mark Waugh all made useful starts, but the game changed thanks to a brilliant catch from Ramprakash, who dived to his left at square-leg to intercept a powerfully hit pull by Langer off Mullally. So often an incredible piece of fielding can lift a team. The adrenalin kicks in and with it the belief that it could really be your day. In that one moment England realised they were capable of the kind of magic that could beat Australia and the bowlers stepped up a gear. Dean Headley, in particular, produced the defining performance of his career. ‘Dean was quite fantastic,’ Stewart said. ‘It was the day of his cricketing life, as he reeled off the overs, never slackening his pace. Deano was the type of person I’d wanted in the England side, someone who would never give up and would also support the other bowlers enthusiastically in the field. And he never looked for excuses, always backed himself.’
Headley won the man-of-the-match award, taking 6 for 60. I listened to the game on the car radio in Sydney, where I was playing grade cricket, urging my Kent colleague on. I was parked behind our club nets, where my teammates had already started warming up for training. Normally conscientious about my practice, on this occasion I couldn’t drag myself away as Deano plucked another one out. That final session was a ridiculous four hours long, as rain delays earlier in the match meant time had to be made up and then Steve Waugh called for the extra half-hour as he sought to avoid the stunt Stewart had pulled against South Africa at Headingley. Gough wrapped things up with the wickets of MacGill and McGrath, leaving Waugh stranded at the non-striker’s end.
I leapt out of my car and ran on to the Petersham Oval for some long overdue Aussie baiting, but none of them believed me. When they had left their television sets, Australia were 130 for 3, needing just 45 more for victory. ‘That whole win summed up how I wanted to captain, the kind of players I wanted to have on my side and the type of cricket I wanted us to play,’ Stewart reflected. ‘As long as that last session was, no one moaned, we were all in it together and we had that collective belief that we could do it. Afterwards we celebrated properly. That and the Headingley win against South Africa best summed up my style of captaincy and what my captaincy beliefs were all about.’
Both Headingley and Melbourne were indeed tremendous victories borne out of hard work, plenty of character and thriving on adversity. Close, against-the-odds wins, especially in the longer forms of the game, are rare, which makes them all the more exhilarating. For a captain, it can’t get any better than a game like that 1998 Melbourne triumph when you and your guys are all together in the field, achieving the impossible. That surge of energy, when 11 committed athletes have their collective mind so intensely focused on one common purpose, is incredibly powerful. As captain, you are at the nerve centre of everything. Knocking off the runs in a chase comes a close second, but as a batsman you are in your individual bubble, seeking to keep that dangerous adrenalin buzz at bay and your emotional levels constant. In the field you feed off each other. In those moments Stewart saw his troops come together as one fighting unit. They played with pride, passion and commitment, and England’s output was greater than the sum of its parts. It was what his captaincy was all about.
Unfortunately, few Test matches are won in this way. If they were, then Test cricket would be bigger than football. No, most Test matches are won when a batting side pumps out a huge score, grinds the opposition into the dirt and then chips the other team out. The best teams dominate; they keep their foot on the throat of the opposition and show no mercy. Stewart’s team weren’t about that. They were backs-against-the-wall merchants.
England travelled to Sydney on a high after their extraordinary turnaround in Melbourne. They were in with a chance of squaring the series, something that had been nothing more than a pipe-dream just ten days earlier when Blewett was smashing them all over the Bellerive Oval in Hobart for Australia ‘A’. Warne returned to partner MacGill on the notoriously spin-friendly playing surface of the SCG and Taylor proceeded to win his fifth straight toss to enable the duo to bowl last. Buoyed by his Melbourne heroics, Headley took 4 for 62 and Australia were once again indebted to the Waugh twins for digging them out of a hole. They scored 217 between them out of a total of 322, Mark scoring a fine century.
MacGill took another five-wicket haul as none of England’s batsmen reached fifty in their reply, but England fought back in the third innings of the game by bowling Australia out for 184. It might have been considerably less had Slater, who played brilliantly for 123, been given run out when a direct hit from Headley caught him short of his ground. ‘The “run out that never was” cost us that game,’ Stewart said. ‘There was a picture that I saw taken from the other side of the pitch that showed him well short of his ground, but Simon Taufel, the third umpire, had his view obscured and gave it not out even though common sense told you he was well out.
‘Slater had walked back to the pavilion gate. He got 93 more runs after that, which was their final winning margin. The next top score was 24. I’m not bitter – it just cost me my job!’
It was to be Stewart’s last Test as England captain, yet he returned home from the Ashes tour with his head held high, having performed creditably against the might of Australia. He had led from the front and his team had followed his gutsy example to give Taylor’s all-star team a real fright along the way.
Stewart then paid the price the following summer for England’s poor showing in the World Cup, which was ironic as he’d originally been appointed as just Test captain and performed well against the two best sides in the world. He only assumed the one-day captaincy after Adam Hollioake failed to overcome the West Indies and South Africa in 1998.
In a pre-central contracts era, Stewart had become embroiled in a pay dispute with the ECB on behalf of his players prior to the World Cup. He sat alongside Fraser and Neil Fairbrother as they fought hard but to no effect to get blood out of a stone. Stewart maintains while it did not affect his team preparations, it did impact on his job. ‘The pay dispute never affected our relationship in the dressing-room or how we played in the World Cup,’ Stewart said. ‘We went out early because we didn’t play well enough. But I am convinced that the issue definitely had a bearing on whether I stayed on as captain or not. After the harsh words spoken in those pay discussions, I needed an impressive tournament to stay in the job.’
It was not to be. The host nation were bundled out of the World Cup the day before their official Cup song was due to be released. It was a complete public relations disaster and, as captain, Stewart was made the scapegoat. ‘It was disappointing to have had such a short time in charge, especially when I’d seen Athers get a good crack at it after winning and losing series,’ Stewart said. ‘I’d won one, lost one. That annoyed me. I felt I was moving it forward and that I had more to offer, but you have to accept it. I could deal with it because it was always playing for England rather than being captain that had motivated me and I played for five more years.’
Upon receiving the news from David Graveney, the chairman of selectors, Stewart phoned Hussain to wish him all the best and to tell him to captain England his way. It was typical of the man. Like Atherton before him, Stewart would slip back into the rank and file and offer valuable assistance to his successor.
Stewart would also go on to represent England a record 133 times in a career that spanned thirteen years, and he ended up leading his country in four other one-off Tests outside of his eleven matches as official captain. Always the patriot and always enjoying a great sense of occasion, it was particularly fitting that Stewart should score a hundred in his 100th Test match at Old Trafford on the Queen Mother’s 100th birthday in 2000. Arguably England’s greatest ever servant, Alec Stewart bowed out of Test cricket at the end of 2003 like he had begun it in Jamaica in 1990 – with a win. His enthusiasm for the game and his passion for his country remained undiminished.