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Alec Stewart’s new role as high-performance cricket adviser at Surrey will significantly reduce his workload as he focuses on caring for his wife during her ongoing battle with cancer.
The former England captain will end an 11-year spell as the club’s director of cricket at the end of the year in order to spend more time with his family.
His wife Lynn has secondary breast cancer and has been fighting the disease for 12 years.
Stewart will take up the new position from January – for a fixed number of days per year – with the responsibility of carrying on Surrey’s success after leading them to a historic third successive County Championship.
Speaking of his wife’s illness, the 61-year-old told the Telegraph: “There are bits and pieces that have crept up recently. It’s never going away. It’s managing it.
“That is, there are some goodish times, and then the last four weeks have been tough for her. And then it’s just putting faith in the oncologist we’ve had from day one, who’s been brilliant.
“But yes, now I’ve got housework duties, cooking duties and other duties on the agenda which I do to the best of my ability, which isn’t great, but you’ve got to try, haven’t you?
“It is two weeks on and two weeks off with chemo and the oncologist has said we will attack it with vigour. And hopefully make life more pleasant. So it’s just managing it really, dealing with it, which is what we’ve always done. She’s the brave one.”
Stewart scored 40,936 runs for Surrey in a 22-year playing career.
He will carry on working alongside Surrey head coach Gareth Batty and captain Rory Burns, while also advising on the talent pathway. The club will not appoint a new director of cricket.
“Everyone knows my love of the club and what it means to me and therefore I’m very pleased that the club wanted me to continue in this new role that has been created,” said Stewart, whose father Micky also played for the county.
“With this new set-up, I firmly believe that we can continue the success at Surrey that we’ve seen in recent times.”
Surrey confirmed Stewart’s new job will be a “significant reduction” from his current full-time role.
Club chairman Oli Slipper said: “We completely understood and accepted Alec’s decision to step back from his director of cricket role at the start of the season but we always wanted to retain his expertise and his impact at Surrey.
“We’ve had excellent conversations with Alec around a common ground that worked for him and for the club and I’m thrilled to say that we have found a role that works for all parties.”
