A hard striker of the ball, Shanan Stewart is a middle-order batsman who had been on the domestic scene for nearly a decade when he was called in to New Zealand's one-day squad during the Chappell-Hadlee Series in March 2010.

He was fresh from a career-best 227 not out in the Plunket Shield, having made 161 the week before, and he had made 401 runs at 44.55 for Canterbury in the one-day competition in 2009-10. He was 19 when he made his first-class debut in 2001-02, starting as an opener before settling down the order.

He played for New Zealand A against the England Lions in 2008-09 and made two half-centuries from three games, and the next season was named in a 30-man preliminary squad for the ICC World Twenty20.