Lives in Cricket No 23 - Brief Candles

66 as full-back for the full Scotland side, against Argentina, while still an amateur. As his MA course came to an end in May 2002, Stuart signed as a full-time professional for Heineken Cup side Glasgow Rugby; a career in the 15-man game beckoned, and cricket would have to take a back seat. But it had not disappeared from his life altogether. By now, Cambridge University and Anglia Polytechnic University 103 had joined forces as Cambridge UCCE for the majority of their first-class programme, but the senior university was on its own for the annual first-class match against Oxford. Stuart recalls that they were struggling to piece together a solid side, and in the hope of beefing the team up a bit, cricket coach Chris Scott ‘pretty much asked around the rugby club to see if they had anyone who could play cricket.’ Two players came forward: Stuart, and a New Zealander and fellow rugby Blue, Mark Chapman-Smith. From such chance events does a degree of fame arise. Stuart now picked up a cricket bat for the first time for a while, and found form immediately, with a score of 89 against the Quidnuncs on 3 June, and innings of 60 and 47 against the Combined Services at Aldershot on 19 to 21 June. The one-day Varsity match against Oxford – still at Lord’s, although the four-day game had moved back to the university cities – was due on 25 June, but despite his good form Stuart was not selected: ‘[Scott] didn’t pick me, not because I wasn’t playing well but because I’d gone on holiday to Barbados for a week and been to a couple of May Balls, so my preparation wasn’t what you’d probably call ideal.’ So he was stuck with twelfth-man duties as Cambridge lost at Lord’s. During the game, his fellow late-selection Mark Chapman-Smith scored 32, but also suffered a thigh strain. He would not be fit for the four-day game in The Parks at Oxford starting the following day so, unusual preparations notwithstanding, Stuart was drafted into the side. What followed was ‘a day that I would put up there as my greatest day … it would go down as my proudest memory.’ It was one of those days when everything just conspired favourably. Coming in at 220 for four on a pitch that he recalls as ‘very dry, very flat, and with a very quick outfield’, for Stuart this was ‘one of those rare moments when you feel in complete control. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, it just feels good.’ Stuart’s natural batting style is to attack the bowling: he told me that he ‘always had too many shots to be an out-and-out number three,’ but The Times reported that early on he did not seem at ease when facing Oxford’s star bowler, Jamie Dalrymple, though he later batted ‘in uninhibited fashion’. By the end of the first day, Stuart had made 96* off 102 balls in 131 minutes, entering the nineties with one of his three sixes; he had also hit 12 fours. His first partnership in first-class cricket, with Adrian Shankar (143) 104 and which came to an end just before the close, had been worth 159. 103 Now Anglia Ruskin University. 104 Shankar later became briefly notorious when, in 2011, his contract with Worcestershire was abruptly terminated after it was alleged that he had made inaccurate claims about his age and playing pedigree. Runs Aplenty