It was always going to be impossible for England's cricketers to knock the World Cup off the back pages. But yesterday, after that 3-0 triumph over Denmark in Niigata, even Tony Blair couldn't keep Beckham & Co. off the front page of every English paper. The News of the World led the way by somehow devoting 38 pages to that victory. But if you found your way past those (not to mention "proud England babe Ebony" who was "so excited all her clothes appear to have fallen off"), there was one lonely page on the Manchester Test and Alec Stewart's hundred. David Norrie couldn't resist pointing out that Stewart had reached his hundred with four successive boundaries "just before the final whistle" in the football. Stewart admitted he'd had half an eye on the big screen – and possibly Norrers did too, as he said those fours were off Buddika Fernando, who isn't actually playing at Old Trafford. The suffering Fernando was Dilhara.

World Cup fever seems to be catching. In the Independent on Sunday Tim Henman says he's ready to win Wimbledon at last. Now that would put the tin hat on a sporting summer to remember. Elsewhere in the IoS it was World Cup 9, Cricket 2, but those two pages paid due homage to Stewart, "the other winner yesterday" according to Stephen Fay – who, purely for research purposes of course, managed to locate a cosy spot in the pavilion where he could see the football and the cricket on TV, and the cricket live as well.

It's 13 pages of World Cup in the Sunday Times, but a double-page Test spread follows the Stewart-is-back line. That's good news for the ST, as Stewart writes for them, although he didn't manage to put pen to paper yesterday as he had the pads on all day. Instead Simon Wilde was left to point out that Stewart has finally stopped doing what England's selectors want: "They want him to retire quietly and give way to a younger man, but he won't."

Football scored 13 in The Observer's sports pages, too, plus three more in the main paper. (What is going to happen if England beat Brazil or, whisper it softly, win the whole thing?) When you do locate the cricket there's Alec again, occupying the thoughts of Vic Marks ("He is surely now undroppable. Stewart may not be so gnarled as some 39-year-old pros, but he recognises when the odds are stacked in his favour and he knows how to cash in") and Mike Brearley ("Stewart's presence allows Sven-Goran Fletcher to pick a balanced side, with a 5-2-4 line-up").

In Sri Lanka there's not much interest in the World Cup – and not much interest in what seems to be a lost cricket cause either. Colombo's Sunday Times carries a brief report that doesn't quite get round to Stewart's innings ("Sri Lanka make spirited 130 for 1"). The inaugural Sri Lanka-Bangladesh rowing regatta gets rather more column inches. Meanwhile the island's own Daily Mirror has no visible match report, but a long account from S Sumanasena lamenting that obtaining an interview with Sanath Jayasuriya at Old Trafford was indeed "the bureaucratic nightmare I expected it to be".

Back in England the Sunday Telegraph balanced seven World Cup pages with three on cricket. "Stewart has proved himself more buoy than boy," wisecracks Scyld Berry. While Mike Atherton catches up with Darren Gough, who was bowling in the nets at Old Trafford yesterday, Nasser Hussain addresses the thorny question of why the younger England players of recent years tended to attach themselves to Stewart as a mentor rather than Atherton. He concludes that it was probably because "Al has been a perfect example to follow," but is forced to admit that "maybe it's because Atherton was smellier".

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