Alec Stewart / Jack Russell

[zaremba]

Prompted by a discussion in the Graham Gooch thread, I thought the Stewart/Russell debate might appeal (2 decades on) to a particular kind of hard-core cricket fan of a certain age, and merit a thread of its own.

For about a decade England struggled with the decision as to whether to play a top-class opener as a keeper, and to leave a world-class keeper out of the team, in the interests of the balance of the team (ie allowing another batsman or bowler to be selected). A great dilemma of the times, and one that England took a long time to resolve - in favour of giving the gloves to Stewart.

So...

- Where did you stand on the issue then?
- Where do you stand on it now?
- Are there lessons to be learned for today?

 

[marc71178]

Same then as now.

We potentially had a World Class opener and one of the best keepers ever who averaged high 20s batting at 7 and put a premium on his wicket.

Instead we tended to play a below-standard keeper who averaged high 20s when batting at 5 or 6 whilst having inferior players opening.

I said it at the time (although obviously not on the web).

I think that the differences between then and now can't be judged unless we have a similar situation (which at a stretch could be assigned to Davies/Prior in ODIs if it weren't for the fact that Prior's keeping is nowhere near Russell's and his batting in ODIs isn't comparable to Russell in Tests)

 

[robelinda]

Absolutely criminal that Stewart wasted a huge portion of his career down the order, at 7 some of the time, INSANITY. From about 91 to 95 was one of the best openers in the world, and probably the best opener against the best fast bowlers. Found it highly amusing when he was captain of the 98/99 Ashes tour how he kept for the first 3 tests, England got hammered, for the 4th test he opens the batting and hands the gloves to some guy I forget, (Wagg??) but Stewart peels off one of the best tons in Australia in the 90's.

 

[wpdavid]

Absolutely criminal that Stewart wasted a huge portion of his career down the order, at 7 some of the time, INSANITY. From about 91 to 95 was one of the best openers in the world, and probably the best opener against the best fast bowlers. Found it highly amusing when he was captain of the 98/99 Ashes tour how he kept for the first 3 tests, England got hammered, for the 4th test he opens the batting and hands the gloves to some guy I forget, (Wagg??) but Stewart peels off one of the best tons in Australia in the 90's.

... and we won our one game of the series. Hegg was the keeper, fwiw.

Did you ever see Stewart's ton against Pakistan in 1992? Truly wonderful batting.

 

[salman85]

With all due respect to Jack,calling him potentially one of the best ever is stretching it.Unless ofcourse you're talking about one of England's best ever keepers,which is more believeable.The bit about balance in the team is somewhat understandable since the 1990s were not a great era for English Cricket.There was a massive influx of bits and pieces players in the side,the whole seperate sides for Tests and ODIs etc.

Had they possessed the same world class players that they do now or they did in the previous decades,then maybe this would not have been such a huge issue.Russell would have slotted into the team,with Stewart playing as a specialist opener only.But the lack of batting and bowling resources meant that they had to let go off one of the two in order to accomodate the additional batsman or bowler.

I think looking at the situation back then,it was the right move.I don't think playing both of them at the same time would have made a marked difference to England's fortunes.If such a situation crops up now,it's almost certain that a Good batsman/average keeper would be preffered over a good keeper/average batsman.That's the way the game has evolved over the years,which kind of answers the 3rd question in the OP too - There aren't a lot of lessons to be learned from that IMO.The game has changed and England have become a much better side.In an ideal world,you would want a specialist keeper,but like so many people have mentioned before,Gilchrist effectivley killed that player off.A keeper with average batting skills will not be picked ahead of a batsman with average keeping skills for the forseable future.There will be exceptions,but they will be few.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Still feel the same now as i did back then, we wasted both players. Jack Russell was the best keeper of his generation and the best gloveman i have ever seen properly he should have always been the first name on the teamsheet, the fact he was a nuggety dogged batsman too makes it even more ridiculous that he was ignored.

Stewart pure and simply was the best opener we had and should have been left to concentrate on his batting. Not either of thems fault that Stewart who eventually became an adequate gloveman was given the role far too often but the team would have benefitted from both of them in the side in my opinion. Just look at Russell's role in Jo'burg with Atherton.

 

[marc71178]

Had they possessed the same world class players that they do now or they did in the previous decades,then maybe this would not have been such a huge issue.Russell would have slotted into the team,with Stewart playing as a specialist opener only.But the lack of batting and bowling resources meant that they had to let go off one of the two in order to accomodate the additional batsman or bowler.

What rubbish and tosh.

Stewart playing as a keeper barely averaged more than Russell did with the bat, which was 15-20 runs less than he could've been contributing as an opener. I don't see how removing a world class keeper and potentially world class opener to replace with a meh-keeper/middle order bat and a weaker opener is improving the team's balance.

 

[salman85]

Where did i say that it improved the team's balance?

I only said that i understand why England would have the balance thing in mind because of the lack of many top drawer batting and bowling options in the 1990s.I don't think England would have achieved any more than they did during the 1990s even if both Russell and Stewart played their specialist roles because of a lack of world class players in other areas.

 

[pskov]

Stewart's test average when Russell was in the team with him was exemplary - 36 matches, 63 innings, 2935 runs @ 48.91, 7 hundreds and 16 fifties. Compare that to his average when keeping of 34.92 with only 6 hundreds in 82 matches and I think it's pretty much a no brainer.

If Russell was a poor test batsman like Chris Read then I could understand the decision, but the fact that he was a very respectable test no. 7 means I think it is pretty crazy that Stewart's batting was compromised for the majority of his career for probably no net benefit.

If you work it out roughly, when they were both in the team you had Stewart averaging 48 and Russell averaging 27 for a combined average of 75 - with Stewart keeping averaging 34 you need to find a replacement batsman averaging 41 to make up the run deficit and if England had a top order player in that era who could average that in test cricket they would've been picking him anyway! Plus that doesn't even take into account the drop in quality behind the stumps from Russell who was excellent to Stewart who was adequate at best.

 

[fredfertang]

Now there may be some young 'uns here who might find it difficult to believe that between 1989 and 2002/03, England were roundly stuffed by Australia in eight consecutive Ashes series

Cynics would say that this debate was only ever started as a means of providing an excuse for that. My recollection is that those who thought Stewart shouldn't keep wicket tended to overlook a few things viz:-

1.He was at worst a thoroughly competent keeper - personally I thought he was a bloody good one
2. He tended to be selected to keep wicket against the stronger sides and the stronger bowling he faced when playing as wicketkeeper/batsman ought to be (but rarely is) factored into the stats
3. He was a fine player of fast bowling but rather less secure against twirlers who he would encounter more often and sooner in the lower middle order than when going in first, so the problem was, in some ways, as much his batting position as whether or not he kept

I also blame his father - had he not been worried about charges of nepotism surely young Alec would have been a lot younger than he was (almost 27) when he debuted and would have had the chance to have made an opening berth secure long before the selectors started shunting him up and down the order

.... but having said that he wasn't as good a keeper as Jack Russell (no one in the world was imo) and there was nowt wrong with Jack's batting so to answer Mr Z's questions

1. I always thought England should play them both
2. I still think they should have done
3. Not really - the game is not the same and all that

 

[BoyBrumby]

To take the other side, in a devil's advocate fashion for some kind of debate if nothing else, Stewart taking the gloves allowed us to play five bowlers which I think is always nice where possible.

Two of our most memorable away wins of (relatively) recent times in Pakistan & Sri Lanka in 00/01 came with Stewie keeping and five man attacks.

 

[zaremba]

Looking back now, it's bleedin' obvious that we should have picked both, for the reasons given by everyone. And at the time I was a big fan of Jack Russell - great keeper, and I loved his batting too. In fact I had a theory at one stage that he should bat 3 for England, but no-one in a position of power ever seemed to listen.

But the thing is, at the same time, the siren call of the all-rounder was just so damn alluring. Playing Stewart as a keeper gave you the wonderful luxury (illusory though it may have been and probably was) of playing either 7 batsmen or 5 bowlers, and that's something not to be sneezed at.

So I have to admit I was very much in two minds about it at the time. I think it's a bit easier to be the cricketing purist about these things with the benefit of hindsight.

 

[fredfertang]

The call of the all rounder was just a pipe dream though

Take 1997 for example - Alec Stewart kept in all 6 Tests, batted up the order and averaged about 24 - The place Jack Russell should have had was taken by Mark Ealham (4 tests) and Adam Hollioake (the other 2) - they scored about 150 runs and took 10 wickets between them

... oh and no prizes for guessing who was top of Gloucestershire's batting averages and 29th overall with more than 1,000 runs at 45

 

[robelinda]

Yeah 1997 was awful, by the 5th test they really shouldve gone to Russell, but instead made the daftest move in debuting both Hollioakes, when neither was close to test quality.. Actually I thought after the Old Trafford test they needed to relieve Stewart of the gloves, but instead put Mike Smith into the team which turned out to be yet another crap move. That was obviously the worst period of the Poms playing very ordinary one day all rounders in the place of proper test players.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Interesting how selectorial thinking changes over the years, actually. We now have a gloveman who averages far more than Stewie did with the gauntlets, isn't a horrible keeper (now) and have three very competent lower order batsman in Broad, Bresnan & Swann yet we still (almost always) go with just a four-man attack.

 

[Furball]

Interesting how selectorial thinking changes over the years, actually. We now have a gloveman who averages far more than Stewie did with the gauntlets, isn't a horrible keeper (now) and have three very competent lower order batsman in Broad, Bresnan & Swann yet we still (almost always) go with just a four-man attack.

IMO 5 bowlers is overkill. You're always going to end up under bowling one of them.

 

[zaremba]

I dunno about that, GF. A 4-man attack is all very well when you're taking wickets, but if you're not, and the going is tough, the 5th bowler can be very valuable both in his own right and simply as a means of relieving the workload on the other 4.

 

[wpdavid]

I dunno about that, GF. A 4-man attack is all very well when you're taking wickets, but if you're not, and the going is tough, the 5th bowler can be very valuable both in his own right and simply as a means of relieving the workload on the other 4.

Plus it gives you options for different conditons or when a couple of the attack are out of sorts. We saw a fair bit of that with the 5-man attack in 2004 & 2005 iirc. That being said, I'm happy enough with the balance of our test side at the moment.

 

[cnerd123]

A 5 man attack is a luxury. Sure you probably will end up under-bowling one most of the time, but the amount of options the fifth bowler can give you, along with how useful they are when a couple of the others are not clicking makes them quite desirable.

England's quite lucky now - if they play Broad/Swann and Bresnan in tests they can get away with either a pure keeper, or a genuine fifth bowler and slot those three into 7-8-9 with Prior at 6.