PRAWN TO BE KING

Vice-captain Pope warned by Alec Stewart: Be prepared for top job...one dodgy curry suddenly put me in charge

- DEAN WILSON

OLLIE POPE has been reminded he is just a dodgy prawn away from getting to experience the "biggest honour" in the game.

And if the official vice-captain wants any advice on how to handle a late callup to the top job, he only needs to pick up the phone to his long-term boss and mentor at Surrey.

Alec Stewart was vice-captain to Graham Gooch on the 1993 tour to India, which did not quite go according to plan on or off the field, but was memorable and fun nonetheless, captured on a series of video diaries by Dermot Reeve.

And it was following a prawn curry the night before the second match that Gooch suddenly realised he was unable to take the field in Chennai and gave Stewart his first taste of England Test captaincy.