Key pair look out of their depth

THE back foot drive which added four runs to England’s second innings total on Friday afternoon was surely one of the finest cricket shots that has ever been seen at Edgbaston.

Michael Vaughan, with the knowledge that he was about to resign the captaincy surely playing on his mind, could barely stand to look as the ball raced to the boundary off the bowling of Makhaya Ntini in the second innings of the Test against South Africa.

The 33-year-old turned away sharply as soon as he had made contact, as if hurt by the all too rare evidence of his own startling talent.

A century then may have changed things, as it eventually did for the everyman’s hero Paul Collingwood. Vaughan would probably have stayed on for the final Test, which could even have ended up as a winner-takes-all decider, before stepping down in glory.

Alas, another sumptuous drive was miraculously plucked from inches above the ground by Hashim Amla. Seventeen runs added to the tally, that was that for the most successful England skipper of all time.

It is hard to argue against Vaughan doing the honourable thing. In an era where the margins between winning and losing are so slight, no team aspiring to success at the highest level can afford to carry a non-performing player simply because he has a great tactical brain and a history of big scores against Australia.

Hopefully, with the weight of captaincy now off his shoulders, Vaughan will get back to scoring tons of runs for Yorkshire in order to force his way back into the reckoning in the middle order.

But as we have seen, good performances at county level don’t mean a thing when officials are so determined to thrust their hand into a selectorial tombola.

This summer of cricket has been a farrago thanks chiefly to two men flailing way out of their depth: coach Peter Moores, as inspiring and astute as a bottle of washing up liquid, and Geoff Miller, the national selector who will forever be associated with the extraterrestrial logic that led to Darren Pattinson finding his way into the team.

Bottom line is, while England haven’t been quite in the same class as South Africa, the feeling remains that it may have been a little different had the best possible team lined up now and again.

Looking forward, Kevin Pietersen should make a good captain. He may have been the only realistic choice, as it is too soon yet for Alistair Cook, while Andrew Strauss isn’t completely convincing as an opener at the moment.

Behind the ego lies a potent cricketing brain. And those who baulk at his appointment should bear in mind that South Africa captain Graeme Smith doesn’t get on with KP very well at all. Which makes him automatically a decent bloke in my book.

mattchambers@oldham-chronicle.co.uk