If the 1980s was English cricket’s decade of sex, drugs and rock and roll excess, the 1990s were its decidedly milder and meeker decade. An English team that for the most part had been losing, slipped further in the pecking order of world cricket as the sport appeared to slip down the list of priorities for a nation.

Alec Stewart was the constant of this decade of English cricket. IN fact he was highest Test run-scorer in the World during the 1990s. He seemed to be the Mr Fix-it man for a constantly changing and usually  outclassed team. Keeping wickets, not keeping wickets. Opening the batting, batting in the middle order. Wherever there was a gap, Stewart had to fill. By 1998 almost inevitably that meant captaincy too. And it started promisingly too, Stewart leading the team to its first 5 Test series win of the decade that year against South Africa.  

Hopes lifted for what was ahead.

The World Cup was born in the UK in the 1970s, and returned home in 1999 for the first time in 16 years as a global event. It had increased popularity of the sport wherever it had gone. Was this the chance for cricket to reclaim its place in the public consciousness in its birth country?

All that hope rested on Stewart’s cobbled together team as he tried to open the batting, keep and captain…what could go wrong? Alec Stewart joins us to talk about World Cup #Ninety9