Vaughan savours golden English summer

Apart from an excusable fallibility in the nervous 190s, little has gone wrong for Michael Vaughan during a golden English summer for the Yorkshire and England opener.

Vaughan, who has always looked a player of genuine pedigree despite a previously modest test record, stroked four centuries, including 197 and 195 against India.

He might have scored a record fifth if rain had not washed out the final day of the four-Test series with India on Monday.

Five players had previously scored four centuries in an English season, although Vaughan was the first to enjoy the benefit of seven tests as the international programme continues to expand.

Fittingly the first was also a Yorkshire opener, the imperturbable Herbert Sutcliffe who scored four centuries against South Africa in 1929. Inevitably Don Bradman (1930) is also on the list along with two great English batsmen, Denis Compton (1947) and Graham Gooch (1990) and a very good one in Allan Lamb (1984).

Lamb's performance may even arguably be the finest, including as it did three centuries against the West Indies pace attack at its terrifying best followed by a fourth against Sri Lanka.

MODEST ATTACKS

Vaughan's four hundreds were compiled against modest opening attacks, a point not lost on the Australians who host England later this year. But it was the style rather than the statistics that will provide the lasting memories.

Richie Benaud, doyen of cricket commentators, is a master of the studied understatement yet he could barely restrain his excitement after Vaughan had stroked yet another sumptuous cover drive en route to his 195 at the Oval.

"He has been absolutely brilliant today," Benaud enthused. "I am just captivated by the way he has come on this summer."

Christopher Martin-Jenkins, writing in The Times, said Vaughan was the most elegant England batsman since Tom Graveney, who played his last test more than 30 years ago.

Former England captain Mike Brearley said older observers traced a resemblance between Vaughan and yet another Yorkshire opener, England's first professional captain Len Hutton.

Unassuming and unhurried, Vaughan looked a class act from the time he came into the England side four years ago. Playing within his limitations, he was initially seen as filling the role played by the obdurate Michael Atherton.

FLOURISHED

Hampered by a succession of injuries, Vaughan looked in control early in his test career without scoring stacks of runs. He took the attack to the New Zealand pace bowlers on variable drop-in pitches during the winter tour, revealing previously unsuspected ambition, but again did not score heavily.

This season, he has suddenly flourished with a series of rippling cover drives, savage pulls and exquisite cuts while compiling a mountain of runs. His driving, in particular, has drawn gasps of admiration throughout the land: fluent, balanced, with a classical poise and grace.

"It's been a great summer," Vaughan told reporters at the Oval. "The wickets have been very flat and I rode my luck. But I have played reasonably well too and it has been a fantastic ride.

"I have missed out through injury quite a lot and that is quite disappointing when you first come into a team and you want to make your mark early.

"I have played the last 12 test matches on the trot and it definitely helps when you play continuous test cricket."

If Vaughan is truly the latest in the line of great Yorkshire openers after Sutcliffe, Hutton and Geoff Boycott, he will need to prove himself on the faster, bouncier pitches in Australia against the world's finest team.

AUSTRALIAN INTEREST

The world champions, who do not intend to relinquish their grip on the Ashes which they have now held for 13 years, have watched Vaughan with interest.

They will have noticed that, after an initial move back, he eases forward to set himself up for those flowing drives which have illuminated the season. The Australians will also have observed that Vaughan is an instinctive hooker and puller, who does not always keep the ball down.

"He will come to Australia in the form of his life but he will find playing on a fast, bouncy pitch at Melbourne, with 80,000 people looking on, a completely new experience," Australia leg-spinner Shane Warne wrote in The Times.

In a preliminary psychological salvo before the Ashes series opens in November, Warne added: "I have a couple of ideas of my own and I am sure we will work out a team strategy nearer the start of the series."

Sutcliffe, Hutton and Boycott all succeeded in Australia, which is now, more than ever, the ultimate test for an international cricketer. The next few months will reveal if Vaughan is a batsman of substance as well as style.

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