Alec Stewart's career may be finished

By Ted Corbett

RAWALPINDI, NOV. 1. Another distinguished career appeared to be in tatters today as the former England captain Alec Stewart heard the staggering news that he had been implicated in the betting scandal. Once a player, no matter how famous, has been accused of giving information to bookmakers his cricket life can never be the same.

But instead of suspending him immediately, as Lord MacLaurin, chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, suggested should happen at the time the England team arrived in Pakistan, they have decided to wait for an investigation by Sir Paul Condon, the former police chief, now heading the International Cricket Council probe.

Lord MacLaurin and his chief executive Tim Lamb have, it seems, spoken to Stewart and accepted his word that he has not met the Indian bookmaker Mukesh Gupta. This behaviour will be seen in Pakistan, where Lord MacLaurin's original statement was greeted with harsh criticism, as being a one solution for England players and another for overseas players. It is difficult to disagree.

Until Stewart can clear his name of taking five thousand pounds to provide weather, pitch and team morale information surely he cannot play for England. It is how we treat policemen under suspicion and it is only fair that cricketers, who have been seen as pure in the past, should also be kept out of the way while they are under suspicion.

I first got wind of rumours that Stewart's name was about to be released by the Indian police six weeks ago from a man known to be close to the intrigue that has surrounded this murky case. He told me: ``All the bookmakers who have been questioned by the Indian police have given Stewart's name as being involved. One of them has sung like a canary and now everything has come out.'' If that is true, the Indian police have done a great job but it is one that hurts those of us close to the action.

For some of us, this stuff is personal. I was swapping jokes with Stewart only 72 hours ago. We have crossed swords, exchanged gossip, been friends for ten years. So with Mohammad Azharuddin. I have been in his home, played with his boys, discussed his team, wished him well ever since we first met back in 1985.

So with the once heroic Hansie Cronje, the courteous man who stood to greet my partner although he was in the middle of another conversation even though he knew neither of us. All these men, gentlemen and players, are not just names in a newspaper column to me. They are real living people with a love for the game that cannot be gainsaid, even though they now stand accused of the gravest treachery.

How the Stewart case will end I cannot tell. Early today he was saying nothing, waiting to find what evidence the police would present but it is almost inevitable that he will be sent home and that he will need endless patience if he is to try to clear his name. He has powerful officials among his friends but that is not sure to help his cause. ``It is so unlike him,'' says his father Mickey who had just given up the coach's job when the 1992-3 tour of India began.

I remember that 1993 tour well. You did not need to be a player to tell a bookmaker that the morale in the dressing room could be swept off the floor. England left David Gower, its best batsman against spin, and its finest wicket-keeper Jack Russell at home and lost all three Tests by margins wide enough in fact, but wider still when the performances of the two sides are put alongside one another. The side were a rag tag and bobtail outfit before it left India and when it went home after the Test defeat in Sri Lanka - under Stewart's captaincy - it was at its lowest ebb.

As for Stewart himself, what you see is what you get. He is so smart, so upright he might be a guardsman. On one tour he was the only one who had thought to bring a pair of blue wrist bands to match their one-day uniform. Whatever the heat, or the rain, or the wind, he always arrived at the crease looking as if he had just combed his hair and had waited inside a fridge for his turn to bat.

England asked him to perform any number of tasks and he always said yes. He rarely let it down and in the past couple of years he has not only led it to a rare series success against South Africa in 1998 but given it heart in the following winter in Australia and spirit in the World Cup that followed. His reward? He was sacked and the captaincy given to Nasser Hussain. Was that right or just? I have argued ever since that although Hussain might be a great captain he did not deserve the job at the expense of Stewart.

Now the ultimate shame has been heaped on his head. He is the only Englishman to be accused of this horrible crime and he needs the backing of his team mates if he is to survive. But I doubt if he can.

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