Hussain: Stewart has been hit hard

Nasser Hussain is hoping Alec Stewart's name will be cleared before the Test series in Pakistan gets underway.

The England captain has spoken of his concerns over Alec Stewart's frame of mind ahead of the first Test starting in Lahore in ten days time after he was named in the CBI match-fixing report published earlier this week.

Hussain told the Sun: "Alec is tough and I hope he emerges from all this. But it's one thing being a strong character on the cricket field - something you've done all your life and is in your nature - and a completely different thing being singled out in the whole country.

"Alec is the only England player mentioned and he knows the whole country is talking about him.

"He's the first item on the news back home - for non-cricketing reasons. It's new ground for Al.

"His reputation is everything to him and, during the past few days, he's had to put up with something he's never experienced before in his life - bad comments about Alec Stewart.

"It came as a shock and hit him hard and I don't know whether he'll be right for the first Test. Nobody knows that."