Chicken pox can't knock spots off Stewart

During the press conference at the close of play of the first day of the Sydney Test, it emerged that England wicket-keeper Alec Stewart went into this match with suspected chicken-pox. He underwent tests before the start of play and it was then confirmed that he had contracted the infection.

Surrey team-mate Mark Butcher said: "We heard just before we got on the coach this morning that he thinks he's got chicken pox and he actually has got chicken pox."

Stewart was 20 not out at stumps and is expected to continue his innings when play resumes on the second day of what is widely expected to be his last Test. He missed out on the Melbourne match because of a bursa on his finger and his deputy, James Foster, put on a very competent display behind the stumps.

Stewart will be 40 in April and, despite being in possession of a 12-month central contact, he could bid farewell to international cricket in the forthcoming World Cup in South Africa.

On the 1994/95 tour of Australia, Stewart missed three Tests with a broken finger, while his county colleague Joey Benjamin contracted chicken pox and played in only four first-class matches on the entire tour. The same illness also struck the England A tour of New Zealand in 1999 when Ronnie Irani - now in the one-day squad in Australia - and Durham's Michael Gough were confined to bed in Christchurch when the touring party moved on to the North Island.