Meet Alejandro Ferguson, the world's longest-serving active international cricketer

I'm chuffed to be writing this piece, just as I was chuffed to see Alejandro – Ale, to his mates – Ferguson's face pop up on the other end of a Zoom call six years in the making.

Back then, in 2016, I was an assistant coach with Cricket Argentina. Ferguson, meanwhile, was Argentina's wicketkeeper.

I'm delighted to report that he is still Argentina's wicketkeeper, evergreen, 28 years on from his international debut. That, this call is set up to tell him, makes him the holder of a world record: the longest-serving active international cricketer in the world.

"That's a real fact?" he asks, laughing. Indeed, it is.

When he first played for his country, aged 15, in Nairobi against the United Arab Emirates as part of the 1994 ICC Trophy, I wasn't born and neither were five of his teammates from his most recent international appearance, the final of the South American Cricket Championships, in which he made 67 off 44 balls last month. "When you put that into perspective, wow. I hadn't thought about that. But when I ask them how old they are and they're 22, I'm like: 'What?'"

That regional tournament has been running since 1995, when he hit the winning runs in the game that sealed the inaugural title for Argentina – they've won it 10 more times since, including October's 17th edition.

You won't come across many better people in the game than Ferguson, one of the most natural glovemen I've seen and a prime example of so much that makes associate cricket quite so special.

Even in the global game's lower echelons, with less competition for places and the genuine need for passionate volunteers to stick at it, there is a reason that international careers don't span four different decades. It requires rare enthusiasm, endless patience and – perhaps more than anything – the energy at 44 years of age to still be good enough and willing to compete.

^{Two photos, almost 30 years apart: Ale Ferguson sits second from left in both - in 1994, the year of his international debut, and in 2021, at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium during the Americas qualifier}

Last autumn, though, when Argentina were part of the Americas qualifier for the T20 World Cup just finished – a subsection that, among others, included the United States, Canada and Bermuda – Ferguson ended as the tenth-highest run-scorer, his unbeaten 86 against Belize the second-top score of the competition.

"Cricket keeps me from not going crazy," he says with a smile, reflecting on why he's still going. "It brings you to the present moment. I think that's the key. If I had to explain why I love the sport, I think it's because you're never too good for it. You're the best player one day, the next day you're out for zero. It humbles you and it strengthens you mentally; I don't think other sports do that.

"Everyone asks how you prepare to spend all that time under the sun. I can't explain it, but you just have to be there and know what it feels. You enjoy that time in the field with your lads.

"Cricket has always been on the menu. Although I have my times to rest or go on vacation, I always return to play."

He has never been paid to play for his country; Ferguson's day job is "in services", so this is a hobby out of hand, with its roots in a family name that meant he was always destined to represent Argentina. Before him came his father, Tony, with whom he batted on his international debut despite a 32-year age-gap. Before Tony came George, Ale's grandad and a player of genuine repute, who played first-class matches in the 1930s and was written about in one of the Wisden Almanacks of the time.

"He was one of the finest cricketers, that's what I heard," says Ferguson. "I never saw him play but from what I get from my father is that he was really elegant. People came to watch him bat."

Cricket isn't big enough these days at the Belgrano Athletic Club, a beautiful ground hidden from public view that doubles up as a rugby pitch through winter where he has spent his entire career, for the crowds to have flocked to his legend, but he remains revered as the example to follow: still one of the fittest players in the national pool, still desperately proud of turning out for Argentina.

^{Ferguson, second from right, celebrates winning this year's South American Championships}

"Training with younger guys gets your motivation a little higher," he says.

"As long as I can perform, as long as I'm fit to play, I think I will continue. All these guys who are 20 years younger than me, they kept on saying when we were preparing for the South American Championships: 'When are you retiring? This is a good time.' Well, okay, when you score the runs, I will retire!"

Argentina's cricket community is a special place, centred in Buenos Aires among a number that has dwindled over time but indebted to a loyal core for its continued existence. There was a remarkable time little over a decade ago, though, when Ferguson and several childhood friends were part of a team that kept winning until it reached Division Two of the World Cricket League.

I was there a few years later, by which point that rise had been followed by an interminable fall only halted when there was nowhere else to drop, featuring 23 losses – and no wins ­– in five years, all that extraordinary work inexplicably undone. The feeling was still raw and there was a sense of regret at how quickly a magnificent journey had swung full circle. On the way down, Ferguson recalls, "we always dropped our level. I don't know why, but we didn't play as we did against the sides in Division Two, with that mentality".

"Basically, when you're winning, you win. But when you're losing, you lose. You can't seem to win a game."

While it lasted, though, it was a feat of glorious overachievement.

"We scaled up really quickly without notice. We had the time of our lives." It peaked in Darwin in 2007, storming Division Three with brilliant wins over Papua New Guinea, Fiji and the Cayman Islands. "It was the tournament of our lives there."

That was the summit of a steep mountain: a tiny cricketing nation where those who claim to have heard of cricket often actually mean croquet, competing at a level for which perhaps they simply weren't cut out. "Looking back at how we played," he admits, "I don't know if we could have gone onto another stage, but we could have done better."

With the best will in the world, it was a happy accident full of surprises. It was only when Argentina made it to the Division Three final that Ferguson "realised that we could play really good, competitive cricket if we wanted to" against countries with greater ambitions and rounder infrastructures.

^{The Ferguson brothers - Poli and Ale - on the balcony of the pavilion at Belgrano Athletic Club}

The downward spiral included losses against Namibia and narrowly to Afghanistan – moving apace in the other direction – at the Hurlingham Club in Buenos Aires. Mohammad Nabi was caught by Poli, Ale's younger brother, himself a fine batter.

"The struggle they went through gave them an extra motivation to get to where they are now," says Ferguson, looking back to his passing contribution to the Afghanistan fairytale. "We don't have that motivation. We play cricket because we love it. We want to play good cricket and be competitive. But it wasn't life-or-death, and we weren't getting paid to play. We just love to play."

That's not bitterness – Ferguson carries genuine admiration for their subsequent success, which has built in a lasting nostalgia from their time as direct rivals – but it's a reflection on the broadness of the associate landscape and its variety of challenges.

For Argentina, that continues to manifest itself in a condensed club competition without the depth to prepare the best players for international tournaments. Even Ferguson was a rugby player – he played primarily as a fullback in the top national division for Belgrano – in cricket's off-season at a time when a mini-tug-of-war meant not many switched between the two.

"The rugby guys didn't look at cricket like a sport," he recalls. "They always tried to bring it down: 'Oh, that's for fools.' They would tell the little guys that it was shit and that they shouldn't be playing cricket. They never understood the game, I believe. But that struggle went away – and now people play rugby and play cricket, and they try to send a different message to the young guys."

He stopped playing rugby at 28, when his friends moved on. Because, for Ferguson, it's always been about the camaraderie. If you can't enjoy it, then what's the point? Cricket, less physical, has given him something different: the same mates who toured New Zealand as 12-year-olds – Ferguson, Matias Paterlini, Martin Siri, Diego Lord – are still going, turning out for their clubs, having once upon a time scaled the world together. Paterlini, who has international hundreds and a similarly talented younger brother, was part of the coaching team last year in the Caribbean, his role simply to transmit onto a predominantly youthful squad the same fearlessness that typified Argentina's ascent.

"I always looked forward to playing abroad because that's what made me click with the sport," Ferguson adds. "It brings you back to why you are playing the game. I enjoy the game, I enjoy the spirit in which it is played."

^{Argentina's (mostly!) young squad for this autumn's South American Championships}

Those opportunities are fewer and further between now; their spate of relegations means they are marooned in the regional pack. Qualifiers for major tournaments come every so often, and there is another not far off, with the 2024 T20 World Cup on the horizon.

The United States' automatic qualification as co-hosts has nudged the door slightly ajar. Last time around, Argentina only finished below the USA, Canada and Bermuda. It was the country's most positive ICC engagement for some time, not only with two wins – and a couple of defeats that ought to have turned out differently – but also in the progression of a younger core.

Pedro Baron, a 21-year-old wicketkeeper-batter from Belgrano, is Ferguson's long-term successor, with enough natural talent for it to be genuinely frustrating that more people might not hear of him. Ollie Price, the Gloucestershire allrounder, spent the first part of 2022 in my old job and came back raving of his ability.

He's not the only one: Ramiro Escobar, Lautaro Musiani, Tomas Rossi, Alan Kirschbaum and Agustin Perez Rivero are also among the next generation, none born when Ferguson first started.

"Imagine what they could achieve playing in a cricketing nation or going for six months to play abroad," he says, with a hint of lament in his voice. In his youth, he was asked by opponents in Bermuda if he'd fancy spending a summer as an overseas player there but never put the wheels in motion. Not experiencing an English summer is one of few regrets. He is a proper sportsman and recognises the ceiling on his cricketing development in Argentina, where the best games have mostly come against touring sides.

"It's really interesting," he adds, "because the young guys are now playing at a level where the opposition says: 'Are you playing in England?' No, they're training in Argentina."

So, the big dream – of reprising old times – languishes somewhere between realism and fantasy.

"It's a tough one because I see a lot of potential for Argentine cricket. But we struggle for numbers. We don't have 500 players to choose from. We have a small base.

"We have me as an old cricketer and the new blood, who are in their early 20s. But in between, there are lots of guys who've left or discontinued from playing cricket. There's a big gap. We need to keep on developing our young players to make it possible because, if not, it's very difficult to compete."

^{Ferguson keeps wicket against Afghanistan in 2009}

He would love a run to the World Cup and he would love for what happened before to happen again, but first he would love to show the teammates half his age the joy of "what it is to get promoted at least to the next stage".

"The next qualifier we're playing is in Argentina," he says, "and that's a nice tournament to be part of for the young kids to see that we're trying to aim to get to the qualifier. When we did win one of the divisions here in Argentina, everybody got pumped and knew that we could do it and that we could win a tournament.

"We went to the South American Championships and last year to the Caribbean thinking that we could perform – and we did. It leaves a nice feeling. I don't know realistically if we're going to be in the World Cup in 2024, but baby steps. Let's approach this qualifier and try to win it or come in the first three places. If we're too ambitious, you get lost. I would love to go to the World Cup, but it is quite distant to me."

Over the last month, though, associate cricket has flown its collective flag spectacularly in Australia. Yes, everyone is there to win for themselves, but there is a collegiate appreciation – of what is at stake, of the bigger picture, of what each of the lesser-resourced countries go through to reach a World Cup in the first place.

So, as the Netherlands beat South Africa, Scotland hammered West Indies and Namibia outplayed Sri Lanka, they were – even if only subconsciously – representing the rest (and the rights) of the global game, just as Ale Ferguson – Argentina's Peter Pan wicketkeeper – has done for almost 30 years.

^{Images courtesy of Cricket Argentina}

Related Topics

• Will Smeed's clarity of thought shines through in decision to focus on white-ball runs