Nonna's is a clean, well-lighted place on one of Sheffield's main arteries and
England's most successful captain ever is sitting in the corner. It is an
appropriate meeting point. The clientele is latte-drinking,
BlackBerry-fingering, young and cosmopolitan and is at odds with the image
of this dowdy industrial powerhouse.
Michael Vaughan, too, represents the best of Yorkshire cricket, the old and
the new: he lacks none of the steeliness and toughness of a previous
generation while displaying none of its worst traits - the pathetic
self-absorption, egocentricity and dogmatism that for a couple of decades
reduced the greatest cricketing county in the land to a petty squabbledom.
It is a fitting meeting place in another sense, as Vaughan used to be a
significant property owner in these parts, although he has sold off the
student flats that he rented out for the best part of the decade. He sold
out before any signs of the credit crunch or property slow-down became
apparent, investing his gains elsewhere. Clearly, his timing is not
restricted to his silky cover drives at the crease.
But is his sense of timing about his own career and the captaincy quite as
acute? The previous time we spoke in this café was during the winter after
the Ashes victory of 2005. His team had lost a series in Pakistan and seemed
to be drifting, stultified by an almighty Ashes hangover. I put it to him,
two and a half years on, that not much has changed and that he might be in
danger of outstaying his welcome.
“No, I think we're in an excellent situation,” he says. “One or two of our
major players are coming back from injury and those that we have introduced
to the team in the last couple of years - Sidebottom, Cook, Panesar and
Ambrose - are really coming on. Stuart Broad is the most intelligent bowler
I've worked with. Peter Moores [the England head coach] is really growing
into his role; he's made us fitter and more focused in our fielding drills.
I'd expect us to beat New Zealand in the early part of the summer and then
the series against South Africa will tell us a whole lot more.”
But what about his own form, which was lacklustre in the winter and, so far,
hasn't flourished in the early-season conditions? Cue Vaughan's typical
response, which has become something of a running joke in the press room. “I
feel good in practice,” much better, he adds, than he felt at the end of the
New Zealand tour, when an uncharacteristically wild and ugly hack in the
final Test suggested a rare loss of nerve.
Optimism is one of the greatest qualities a captain can have and Vaughan has
never doubted himself, publicly at least. He even found reason to be
cheerful about his first foray into the summer, a match that garnered him
two runs in two innings against the students of Leeds/Bradford UCCE. “It was
no bad thing at all, actually,” he says. “It reinforced one of the most
important lessons in sport, that if you are not fully focused then it
doesn't matter who you are playing against, they can knock you over. It was
good to be reminded of that early on.”
Vaughan is one of those lucky batsmen who never gives the impression of being
out of nick, even when the returns are modest, so that his ability and his
place in the team are rarely questioned. But at 33, and with the batting
order seemingly shape-shifting to accommodate him once again (he says he
will bat at three this summer to give him more of a mental break after
captaining in the field, which will mean Andrew Strauss returning to
opener), a famine against New Zealand is likely to stretch patience thin. It
also raises the question if Strauss prefers to open and Vaughan prefers
three, why wasn't this arrangement in place in New Zealand?
Still, he felt something “might have clicked” last week, although a few runs
would be more welcome than a good feeling in the nets. Since Giles Clarke,
the ECB chairman, is an admirer of Vaughan's, runs are all that,
realistically, stand in the way of another tilt at the Ashes a year hence.
The only negatives that creep into our conversation are about the lack of
out-and-out pace bowlers in English cricket and the presence of a large
number of Kolpak players. He's ambivalent about the latter, as they have
undoubtedly, he says, helped to improve standards while at the same time
limiting opportunities for young English batsmen, who, if the development
squad is anything to go by, are thin on the ground.
His concerns about the absence of genuinely fast bowlers suggest a question
mark against the two senior quicks, Andrew Flintoff and Stephen Harmison.
Both are sure to figure prominently when the selectors mull over their
starting line-up for the New Zealand series. Vaughan seems more certain
about the former than the latter. “For a long time I was a fan of five
bowlers, but since we've had to do without Fred, I've realised that whilst
five might be ideal, it is certainly possible to do with four in Test
cricket,” he says. “That's the way I'm looking right now. Most other Test
teams have a No6 who averages 45 in Test cricket, so I'm looking at Flintoff
at seven and four bowlers.” Sounds like Flintoff is already inked in.
But does this mean that Vaughan, like Duncan Fletcher, the former England
coach, earlier in the month, doubts Flintoff's ability to bat at six any
more? “No, he's done it before,” he says, “it's just that he hasn't played
for a long time, and for Fred, his bowling rhythm comes much more naturally
than his batting. The only problem with four bowlers is that it asks a lot
of his fitness, which we'll find out about over the next few months, and it
asks more of Monty Panesar, who might have to bowl, say, 25 overs on a
first-day pitch, but I've got no worries about him.”
And Harmison? “It's unbelievably frustrating from a captain's point of view,”
he says. “I've had him when he's been the best bowler in the world, and I've
had him when he's been ... ” Vaughan lets the sentence drift away on the air
but his meaning is clear. “I just don't want to see that talent go to
waste,” he continues. “One thing I've spoken to Peter Moores about is to try
and get some more cricket for those of us who are not going to be playing in
the one-day series in India this winter. I think we can go out earlier than
the ten days we had in New Zealand and with the Lions in India at the same
time, I've asked if we can play a game or two with them as well.”
While Vaughan does not speak for the players in England - that is left to the
increasingly powerful Professional Cricketers' Association - the England
captain's views on the state of the nation have always been sought after. It
is a particularly febrile time for cricket right now. Unsurprisingly, given
his outlook on life, Vaughan sees the Twenty20 revolution as an opportunity
rather than a threat. “Walking down here I was stopped by three people who
asked me about the IPL, not Yorkshire or England,” he says. “Cricket is
reaching a whole new audience and provided the administrators respond to the
challenge wisely, it should benefit the game.
“I'm certain it will benefit Test cricket. You'll see players like Brendon
McCullum taking his Twenty20 game into the Test arena, teams looking to
score over five an over, giving fielding captains more and more headaches.
“There's lots happening, but I will say that there's been far more talk of it
all in the Yorkshire dressing-room than there was in the England
dressing-room this winter. England players are absolutely committed to
England. We've been very well looked after by the ECB and England remains
our main concern. I don't think we'll get to a situation where an England
player refuses a central contract to free himself up. I don't think he would
be selected if he did.” Why not, given the free-market philosophy that
is gripping the game? “Well, it would say a lot about that player's
motivation and priorities,” he says.
And the wider effects on the English game? “I think a midsummer Twenty20
tournament with foreign players and foreign teams is inevitable in England,
although I'd like to see it kept shorter in duration than the IPL,” he says.
“It may also give the administrators the impetus to accept the wishes of the
majority of English players, which is to play less championship cricket.
“I think our championship is fantastic right now, miles better and much more
professional than when I started playing. But we play too much, which
impacts on our one-day cricket, our ability to prepare and practise
properly. It's ridiculous that we often start a one-day match the day after
a four-day game. The players really care about the structure of cricket in
this country, not because they want to have more time off but because they
want to take our cricket on to a new level. About ten championship games a
year would be perfect.”
Summer has arrived, and England's captain bounces out into the sunlight in
optimistic mood.
