John Stephenson

In this episode we catch up with former Essex and Hampshire all-rounder John Stephenson. John’s career included over 22,000 runs and more than 600 wickets in professional cricket and he captained Hampshire for two seasons in 1996 and 1997. But here we’re concerned with his Test appearance, which came against the mighty Australia side of 1989, the one under Allan Border’s leadership that steamrolled England that summer. John, who was opening the batting with some success for Essex alongside Graham Gooch at the time, was called up for the final Test of the six-match series at The Oval with England already 4-0 down in the series and his story reveals just a little of the chaos in the national set-up in the face of that mauling. Let’s take up the story…