Stewart to take new part-time role at Surrey

Alec Stewart helped guide Surrey to their third straight County Championship title last month

Surrey director of cricket Alec Stewart will take on a new part-time role at the club from January.

The former England captain, 61, will become the county champions' high-performance cricket advisor for a fixed number of days each year.

He is stepping down from his role as director of cricket in December after 11 years at the helm.

In that time Surrey have won the County Championship four times and 12 players have gone on to play for England.

The county will not appoint a new director of cricket to replace Stewart, who will work alongside head coach Gareth Batty and captain Rory Burns.

"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," Stewart told the club website.

"With this new set up, I firmly believe that we can continue the success at Surrey that we’ve seen in recent times.

“I look forward to continuing my working relationship with Gareth, Rory and the team.”

Surrey chair Oli Slipper added: "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.”