Published By: Saksham Mishra

A look at Alec Stewart's career, England's underrated keeper-batsman

When you think of England wicket-keeper batsmen, who's the first name that pops up? Jos Buttler. Think of the ones from the yesteryear, and Matt Prior and Jack Russell make their presence felt. But Alec Stewart remains foggy in our memories.

It is a shame that this is the case when Alec Stewart and Michael Atherton were the two players who stood out in the England side through the 1990s. This decade was one of the lowest eras for England cricket. Had Stewart been part of an England team in a better era, he could have done wonders.

Stewart, the former captain, was unconventional in his batting as well as captaincy, but what's important is that he delivered. There's also a huge difference in stats when he played as a wicket-keeper batsman and as a pure batsman.

In 51 Tests that Stewart played as a pure batsman during the 1990s, his tally of close to 4000 runs at 46.7 included nine centuries. To understand it better, Atherton, one of England's best batsmen of all-time, scored 5463 runs in 83 Tests and averaged exactly 10 runs fewer in the same period.

Stewart's 4,540 runs at 34.92 are the highest among English wicket-keepers. Among all wicket-keepers in world cricket, Stewart is only behind Adam Gilchrist and Mark Boucher. His 8,463 runs at 39.54 were second only to Graham Gooch’s 8,900 when he retired.

Being shuffled in the batting order and captaincy weighed him down. The Surrey man averaged 35 as a wicket-keeper batsman but when picked purely as a batsman, he scored at 46.

Stewart replaced Mike Atherton as England captain in 1998 and celebrated with the team's first big series victory in 12 years, which came against South Africa. However, when England lost another Ashes series and flopped in the 1999 World Cup, he was removed as skipper.

Despite mounting pressure to replace him with a young wicket-keeper, Stewart went on to play till 2003. In fact, his batting and wicket-keeping only got better in his later years as he continued to play past 40. Stewart finally hung his boots at the end of a drawn series against the Proteas.

To sum up, Stewart is one of the best England wicketkeeper-batsmen. Had he not been moved around in the batting order and been allowed to give up the wicket-keeping duties, he could have been among the country's top two run-scorers of all time.