Stewart criticises glut of overseas players

Alec Stewart has criticised the decision to allow county teams to pick two overseas players each, saying that England's chances of international success had been damaged

"We've got two top-class overseas internationals at Surrey this year in [Pakistanis] Azhar Mahmood and Saqlain Mushtaq," Stewart told Monday's edition of the London Evening Standard. "But for the good of English cricket I would like only one per team, especially when you consider some counties already have several players who can earn a living here because they hold European passports but are not eligible for our England teams."

Stewart, England's most-capped player in both Test (126 matches) and one-day internationals (170 matches), said the situation had changed radically since he was a young player at The Oval, 22 seasons ago.

"When I started out, counties could have two overseas players. But we're talking about some of the greats, such as Malcolm Marshall and Gordon Greenidge at Hampshire and Viv Richards and Joel Garner with Somerset. Now there are not 36 top-class star players available to the 18 counties because of the amount of international cricket being played around the world all year round."

"So people are simply signing players for the sake of signing them. What they should be saying is `let's get the best available and then try to turn a promising English player into a very good player'. We are the only country that imports really. All I want is for us to be the best and I don't think we should be helping other countries too much at our expense."

Stewart's England place has been up for discussion ahead of next week's first Test against Zimbabwe at Lord's. Some pundits have suggested that now is the moment to end Stewart's long international career, with Chris Read and James Foster the favourites to take his place.

But Stewart is well-used to being written off: "England should now look to the future for the one-dayers. But as for the Tests, pick me." The squad is due to be announced on Saturday.