Wellington cricket legend Stewie Dempster scored New Zealand's first test centuries at home and away.

His name adorns the northern entrance of the Basin Reserve, a lofted drive from where he grew up on Kent Terrace.

Thousands of cricket fans and pedestrians stroll through the CS Dempster Gate, season after season, many without knowing the significance of the name to New Zealand Cricket.

For the fleeting fan, Stewie Dempster may be the greatest New Zealand cricketer you've never heard of.

SUPPLIED Jack Mills and Stewie Dempster each scored New Zealand's first two test centuries, against England at the Basin Reserve in 1930.

How good? The title of a new book by cricket author and former NZC board member Bill Francis gives a clue: 'Second Only to Bradman - The Life of Stewie Dempster'.

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Ninety years this January since he became New Zealand's first test century-maker - against England on his Basin backyard - Dempster's batting average remains second to the great Sir Don Bradman among those to play 10 or more tests.

STUFF Kay Martin with her father Stewie Dempster's test cap in 2001.

Behind Bradman's stratospheric figure of 99.94, Dempster slots in with 65.72 ahead of a modern day great Steve Smith (64.56, and climbing).

Francis says the batting average was merely a starting point for telling his remarkable story, after Dempster spoke of writing a book but never got there before his death in Wellington in 1974, aged 70.

Dempster scored that landmark century in New Zealand's second test in 1930, and 18 months later repeated the feat in his first offshore test at Lord's. His test career spanned just 10 matches and three years.

CRICKET WELLINGTON The Basin Reserve scoreboard carries details of the second test between New Zealand and England at the ground in January 1930.

In all first-class matches for New Zealand, Dempster scored 11 centuries, then another 18 for Leicestershire as he built a successful 14-year career in England before returning home and struggling to find his niche before entering coaching.

Francis describes Dempster as "a distant and somewhat neglected figure of New Zealand Cricket history".

"I'd come across Stewie a lot in my research [for other cricket books] and his record was second to none in his era," Francis said.

STUFF Author Bill Francis describes Stewie Dempster's story as 'one that cried out to be told'.

"All his contemporaries, everywhere I looked, said he was the greatest player we ever had.

"He's often forgotten about in discussions about the greatest New Zealand test team. He was pretty exceptional, and the great players like Wally Hammond and Jack Hobbs ranked him as good as there was."

Francis launched the book at the Basin Reserve's Norwood Room on Monday night with assistance from Dempster's only child Kay Martin - a major contributor to the story - with her son and two grandsons also there.

Former test opener and Wellington coach Bruce Edgar was one of 'Stewie's Boys', along with Ian Smith, Robert Vance and Evan Gray the future test players coached by Dempster as schoolboys.

Edgar wrote in the book's foreword of walking past the Dempster Gate: "I'm always reminded what a humble and special person he was - someone who I and my squad mates looked up to with enormous respect."

Francis writes Dempster defied a challenging childhood.

GETTY IMAGES Former test opener Bruce Edgar was among 'Stewie's Boys', along with Ian Smith, Robert Vance and Evan Gray.

"[Dempster] was an only child whose father, a sea captain, got into trouble with the law, and whose mother had a dalliance with a plumber that led to the divorce courts.

"Natural ability combined with relentless practice took him to the top of the batting tree - a giant step removed from some of the travails of his upbringing."

Dempster also had a reputation as a "ladies man" who had a broken engagement and three marriages.

Writes Francis: "Stewie himself was inclined to call a spade a spade and sometimes may have rubbed the odd person up the wrong way. Yet, overwhelmingly while researching Stewie's story, people variously described him as humble, approachable, a gentleman with a lovely nature.

"The boys he coached in his twilight years professed a love for the man who gently and quietly told them how to go about perfecting batsmanship."

AT A GLANCE

Highest test cricket batting averages (minimum 10 tests):

99.94: Don Bradman, Australia (52 tests)

65.72: Stewie Dempster, New Zealand (10 tests)

64.56: Steve Smith, Australia (68 tests)

63.05: Sid Barnes, Australia (13 tests)

61.87: Adam Voges, Australia (20 tests)