Michael Vaughan
gin soak/CreativeCommons (altered with permission)
Michael Vaughan, who's retired from cricket today, will of course be remembered as the captain who led England in one of its greatest summers. It started on a low: after great anticipation, England were humbled in the first test at Lords. But after a determined comeback and dramatic 2-run win at Edgbaston, the country was gripped with cricket fever for five weeks. We agonised over the drawn Old Trafford match that the Australians magnificently saved; we believed again, after England staggered home to go a test up after making Australia follow on at Trent Bridge; and we jumped with joy and relief when Pietersen's big score bagged the Ashes at the Oval.
The summer of 2005 was one of the great moments in sport, and to have been the man who took the Ashes that year has to be the summit of a great career: Vaughan is England's most successful captain, winning 26 of the 51 tests he led. He took on a side whose attitude and competitiveness had been transformed by Nasser Hussain and Duncan Fletcher, and inspired it to achieve the great things it promised. And there might have been more, had injuries, pressure and loss of form not broken that team up.
I want to remember, too, what a brilliant batsman Vaughan was. Before he took on the pressures of captaincy he averaged over 50 in tests. He was at one time the best batsman in the world - when Lara, Tendulkar, Hayden, Ponting and Dravid were all playing - and England's best batsman for years. Most of all, he was a joy to watch. Something about him was from another era: he was a classical, elegant batsman with a clean-cut cigarette-card look, a range of calm, graceful strokes and a cover drive that was a thing of beauty. He was not just a great English captain, but a great batsman and a great cricketer. He's missed.
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