Test No
Andrew Miller23-Jul-2003
Alec Stewart’s defining moment: twin centuries in Barbados 1993-94
Test No. 1 – Sabina Park 1989-90
Stewart’s Test debut came in one of the most famous – and unlikely – English victories of all time. Drubbed by Australia in the Ashes, and weakened by the defection of several leading players to a rebel tour of South Africa, England seemingly didn’t have a prayer coming into the first Test against West Indies at Sabina Park. But under Graham Gooch’s captaincy, Angus Fraser, Devon Malcolm, Gladstone Small and David Capel whittled away at the West Indian batsmen, Allan Lamb scored a gutsy century, and England won by nine wickets. Stewart’s own contribution was modest; batting at No. 3 he made 13 in first innings, but he was at the crease in the second when Wayne Larkins cracked the winning runs on the final morning.Test No. 13 – The Oval 1991
Stewart’s second coming as a Test cricketer. England were trailing West Indies 2-1 as they arrived at The Oval for the final Test of the series, and in a major selectorial gamble, Stewart’s superior batting was preferred to Jack Russell’s expertise behind the stumps. He had done the job before – though with less at stake – at Adelaide and Perth the previous winter, and typically, he didn’t let anyone down. He contributed vital innings of 31 and 38 not out, as well as four catches, and England won by five wickets to avoid a series defeat against West Indies for the first time in 18 years.Test No. 19 – Lord’s 1992
With Russell restored behind the stumps after the Oval victory, and Mike Atherton out of action after back surgery, Stewart quickly established himself as Graham Gooch’s regular opening partner. He had scored four hundreds in his previous five Tests, including a career-best 190 against Pakistan at Edgbaston, but his personal favourite came in the second innings of this, a Lord’s classic. Faced with Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis in their pomp, and Mushtaq Ahmed at his wiliest, Stewart carried his bat for 69 out of a total of 175 (the next-best score was 15). It was almost enough for victory: chasing 138, Pakistan slumped to 95 for 8, before Wasim and Waqar inched them over the line.Test No. 24 – Madras 1992-93
Stewart’s first taste of international captaincy had a distinctly fishy flavour. He had originally been selected as first-choice wicketkeeper for England’s tour of India – a decision that provoked outrage at Lord’s – but when Gooch succumbed to a plate of dodgy prawns on the eve of the second Test, Stewart took over the side, while the wicketkeeping duties passed to … Richard Blakey. It was a tough baptism. Sachin Tendulkar scored a century as India posted 560 for 6, and though Stewart scored 74 in England’s first innings, he fell for a duck as they collapsed in the follow-on.Test No. 36 – Bridgetown 1993-94
The Gaffer’s finest hour. Restored to the opener’s role for the toughest tour of all, Stewart had formed an admirable partnership with his new captain, Atherton, though even they had not been able to prevent West Indies cruising to a 3-0 lead. The low point had come in the previous Test – that 46-all-out humiliation at Port-of-Spain – but two weeks later the worm had turned. Stewart scored two centuries in the fourth Test – 118 and 143 – and England became the first side to defeat West Indies in Barbados for 59 years.Test No. 54 – Lord’s 1996
If Raymond Illingworth had had his way, Stewart’s career would have ended, like that of Robin Smith, in the clearout that followed England’s defeat in South Africa and their subsequent humiliation in the World Cup. He was dropped for the first Test of the summer, but earned a reprieve when his replacement, Nick Knight, broke his finger ahead of the second Test at Lord’s. Stewart top-scored with 66 in the second innings, and never looked back, scoring three hundreds and six fifties in his next eight matches.Tests No. 60 and 61 – Harare and Auckland 1996-97
Two of those hundreds came in back-to-back Tests in Zimbabwe and New Zealand, and, for the first time, they were scored despite him also keeping wicket. After whetting the appetite with 101 not out in the drawn Test at Harare, he followed up with a magnificent 173 at Auckland, the highest score ever recorded by an England wicketkeeper. Stewart had been handed back the gloves at the end of the previous summer, after scoring 170 against Pakistan at Headingley. At the age of 33, he was finally coming to terms with the dual role.Test No. 80 – Headingley 1998
After standing in for Gooch on three fruitless occasions, Stewart was finally rewarded with the captaincy in his own right, when Mike Atherton stood down after defeat in the Caribbean. He had a very full plate – this time he carried on wicketkeeping throughout the South African series – but after clawing England back from the brink with 164 in the rescued match at Old Trafford, he had the pleasure of becoming the first England captain to win a five-Test series since Mike Gatting in 1986-87.Test No. 85 – Melbourne 1998-99
Stewart’s first Test century against Australia. He had got mighty close eight years previously, with 91 at Sydney on his first Ashes tour, but made no mistake this time. Keeping wicket and captaining had proved too much, though, so Stewart gave Warren Hegg a debut behind the stumps and reverted to his favoured opening role. It paid dividends too, as England won a thrilling match by 12 runs, to keep the series – but not the Ashes – alive.Test No. 100 – Old Trafford 2000
A century in his 100th Test, and on the Queen Mother’s 100th birthday to boot. Stewart scored a blistering 105 in the third Test at Old Trafford, the culmination of an astonishing run of form that had begun in the NatWest series the previous month. In consecutive innings he had already made 74 not out, 101, 100 not out and 97. But for a man as patriotic as Stewart, this one topped them all. Not bad for a 37-year-old.Test No. 118 – Old Trafford 2002
Not for the first time, the vultures were circling over Stewart’s career. And not for the first time, he shot them all down in emphatic fashion. After opting out of the previous winter’s tours of India and New Zealand, he had also missed out on a central contract, with the wicketkeeper’s slot going to his replacement James Foster. When Foster broke his arm prior to the Test series, Stewart earned a reprieve, and made the role his own once again with his first century for two years.Test No. 126 – Sydney 2002-03
Australia is no place for weary bones, as Graham Gooch and Courtney Walsh have discovered in recent years. But despite beginning his fourth and final Ashes trip with a pair at Brisbane (his first in Tests) Stewart signed off Down Under with a typically bristling performance. His first-innings 71 from 86 balls at Sydney included a fabulous assault on Brett Lee, and laid the foundations for Australia’s first defeat on home soil for four years. There were rumours that Stewart would not be resuming his innings on the second day, because overnight he appeared to have contracted chicken pox. But as Lee discovered, the only eruptions were from Stewart’s bat.Andrew Miller is assistant editor of Wisden CricInfo.