Vaughan times it right
Michael Vaughan was a Test match batsman and captain of the highest rank.
Yet his unconventional route to the top perhaps explains an anti-climactic exit from cricket.
Vaughan, who honed his skills with Sheffield Collegiate at Abbeydale, never truly had first-class claims to be elevated from Yorkshire to England, and it was only the intuition of coach Duncan Fletcher which delivered his international talent.
It has been no surprise therefore, since September last year, that he has failed to reclaim his Test place.
It was perhaps predictable too that, unable to earn the right to perform centre stage, at the age of the 34 the adopted South Yorkshireman has apparently decided on as timely an exit as possible.
The culmination, of course, of Fletcher's instinct - not to mention years of painstaking strategy, and several other favourable factors outside either man's control - was a glorious, finest hour for Vaughan, his 2005 Ashes winners and modern-day English cricket.
Even without that rollercoaster summer of success, unprecedented for a generation since the 1980s dramas of Botham and Brearley, Vaughan's credentials would be strong as an English batsman and captain out of the top drawer.
He showed his mettle in his first Test innings. Thrown into the chaos of England's two for four in Johannesburg, he responded with a class and calmness which - though unable to alter the course of match or series - provided an early hint of a significant career.
Within two years, Vaughan had exceeded the expectations of consensus - that a sound technique and unflappable temperament meant he could aspire to be England's new Michael Atherton.
In making 900 runs against Sri Lanka and India in 2002 and following up with more than 600 in an Ashes series loss Down Under, Vaughan propelled himself to the top of the world rankings and just about the best of his capabilities as a batsman.
He did so too not with Atherton-esque doggedness but a flair all his own, characterised by a trademark cover-drive and pull one-two - in either order but so often from consecutive deliveries as to illustrate uncanny ability against world-class opposition.
It was against one of the greats, South Africa's Shaun Pollock, that Vaughan produced one of his most memorable performances - on the eve, ironically, of his coronation as captain.
He needed all his stoicism to survive as Pollock beat the outside edge so many times as to suggest an unfair contest in bowlers' conditions at Edgbaston.
But survival blossomed into classic Vaughan strokeplay, and it was on the back of his 156 in a rain-affected draw that Nasser Hussain resigned as captain - and Vaughan took his place. The rest is treasured history for English cricket followers.
After an Oval double-hundred from Marcus Trescothick - another inspired Fletcher pick - had rescued an unlikely drawn series against South Africa, Vaughan's England embarked on a remarkable run of success.
Some of the opposition were less testing than ought to be the case at the highest level.
But in winning a first series in the Caribbean for more than 35 years - 3-0 thanks to fast bowler Steve Harmison, in the form of his life - and adding a home whitewash against the Windies, another against New Zealand and then victory in South Africa, Vaughan rewrote the records.
It was all leading to 2005 - when everything fell into place for England to pull off what was still a shock 2-1 win at home to Australia.
Momentum, belief, protracted fitness - not to mention the emergence of Kevin Pietersen, and Andrew Flintoff's truest vindication as a champion all-rounder - imbued Vaughan's England, as the public latched on to the extraordinary events.
Adulation followed on a scale beyond cricket's dreams, with MBEs all round and expectations blown higher than the roof of the open-top bus celebrations.
Frailties appeared quickly, however, as England came back to earth in Pakistan - and Vaughan himself was put out of Test cricket for 18 months with the worst recurrence of his chronic knee injury.
They were long months too, in which England were to lose the Ashes 5-0 in Australia under Flintoff.
A disastrous run continued when Vaughan returned for the 2007 World Cup, but it speaks for his determination that he battled his way back and marked his Test return on his home ground with a century in an innings win over West Indies.
There was another hundred to come that season and a final one in a home win over New Zealand at the start of last summer. But the sparkling fluency, and the fortune which generally attends anyone at the top of their game, had long fizzled out by the time a tearful Vaughan announced - after losing to South Africa - that his captaincy days were done.
Yet until last week, nine largely runless months later, Vaughan had always clung to the hope of another glorious comeback to help England revive the spirit of 2005 for the Ashes of 2009.
Many have and will doubtless continue to try to pinpoint what it was that made Vaughan such an outstanding leader.
Depending on which expert you read, it was his supreme tactics, his man-management, or his gut instinct to stay ahead of the game. The latter is the likeliest, and perhaps the most enviable trick up the sleeve of any winning captain.
It is what made Vaughan the man of the moment four years ago, and it is what appears to have helped his good sense triumph over ego yesterday.
Just as so often in 2005, Vaughan has again made the right call at the right time - and in doing so has done all he can to give England the best chance of regaining the Ashes this summer.
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Friday 25 May 2012
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