Vaughan's arrival on the big stage

I have been around for the coronation of eight England Test captains and I can tell you that Michael Vaughan's arrival on the big stage was so well organised that it should have been at Westminster Abbey, just like the real thing.

TED CORBETT

In a sense it was nothing like the real thing. Vaughan was being appointed as captain of the one-day international team but unless he loses his form, his self-belief and his bat at the same time, he will be Nasser Hussain's successor whenever that is necessary.

By the time he arrived at Lord's to accept his crown, Vaughan was known to be the choice to everyone in the country with the exception of the 11 million alleged to be watching Phil Tufnell barnstorm his way towards victory in the television melodrama called I'm A Celebrity — Get Me Out Of Here.

That record audience may have thought they were voting for Tufnell to be England captain but the true fans knew the score. So many Test centuries in a year makes you an automatic choice as England captain; taking 100 Test wickets in a career gets you nothing except elevation as the dressing room's complainer-in-chief.

Vaughan gave a faultless performance. He was smartly dressed; but then he always is. He spoke clearly, with strong Northern vowels that need to be rounded slightly if he is not to offend the southern constituency of his realm. He answered all the questions directly as if he had been planning his acceptance speech for a month and with a diffidence which gives him a supreme advantage in a country that loves a modest man.

He also laughed at himself, another trait that makes Englishmen go weak at the knees. "You would not be mentioning me as the best batsman in the world if you had seen me bat this season," he told one questioner.

These ceremonies have not always been handled so professionally. In the bad old days of 1986, defeat by India at Lord's resulted in David Gower, who had led England to Ashes success a year earlier and beaten India at home 18 months before, being sacked and Mike Gatting made captain.

It was a public relations nightmare. Peter May, who was chairman of selectors, had not realised that Gower was going wrong "until the chaps at the golf club began muttering about it. Then I knew he had to pull his socks up or go."

Immediately after the Test ended I wandered into the area near the dressing room and saw the whole, sad event. MCC members on their way out of the ground were also witnesses; the players' attendant saw every move. It was a humiliation for the gentlemanly Gower and it could have been handled with so much more tact.

Two years later May contrived to sack Gatting and John Emburey in the space of four Tests, and left the game with egg on its face again. Luckily, there were wiser men who saw the need for public relations expertise and in 1989 the then Test and County Cricket Board began to appoint professional PR men.

There have been a few false starts along the way — when, for instance Ted Dexter, the new chairman of selectors, had to introduce Graham Gooch as the new captain only a year after calling him "a wet fish" in print — but now the Lord's PR department runs a slick operation.

Vaughan's success will only partly be measured in PR terms; how he stands up to the job on the field is far more important. So the next day I went to see for myself.

I live not far from Cambridge and only 14 miles from March where Cambridgeshire were playing Yorkshire. It was an irresistible excuse to see a bit of old-fashioned cricket like grandma used to watch. I was not disappointed.

First, despite the fact that I now possess a vast book with details of how to reach every major ground in the country, I got lost. Three times in all. March is tiny but the book's instruction to "go down the A141 and follow signs to the cricket" was wrong in only one particular. There were no signs.

So 45 minutes later I was inside and finding that, amazingly, there were still places where the great game is played in the Corinthian spirit, where autograph hunters are welcome and where you can find pork sandwiches from a pig that has been roasted on a spit. No kidding! The ground would have been recognised by every famous cricketer from any era. It was not quite as big as The Oval, but big enough, it was surrounded by horse chestnut trees in full leaf and the pavilion, boasting a lick of paint and some new guttering, stood bravely in the sunshine. (Yes, I know that 17 degrees Celsius is nothing to write home about if you were born in Chennai or Chittagong, but to the average Englishman it is time to whip on the shorts and take off the shirt. Many spectators were stripped by the time the umpires walked out).

There must have been 4,000 locals with nothing better to do than watch this first round of the Cheltenham and Gloucester (once the NatWest, still further back the Gillette) Cup, the nearest entrepreneurs had erected marquees and there were enough portaloos to accommodate most of the crowd at the same time.

It was on this same ground 15 years ago that I sat next to one of those cricket writers with a name that meant his ancestors probably fought at Agincourt and whose entry in the ECB handbook mentions Eton and Cambridge and an address so deep in central London that he must be seriously well provided with cash or have a bank manager with a generous heart.

"Lovely ground," I said.

"Beautiful. I played here a few times and I always thought it was the most lovely place on earth, rather spoiled by those dreadful four-bedroomed detached house on the horizon."

"Do you mean those houses over there that are almost identical with my own home?" I asked.

"Oh, I say!" As if I might be pitied, being forced to live in such dire circumstances.

Almost the first sight I saw was a queue of small boys waiting for Vaughan to sign their books, only 20 minutes before he was due to bat. He signed them all, including one held by a small boy too shy to ask. "Just give me the book and your pen," Vaughan grinned. One day that lad will be a Vaughan fanatic; I am just pleased to know that Vaughan realises the value to such a personal contact.

Sometimes events in any sport are just too predictable and it was not a shock to anyone at the ground when, after he had scored ten runs in half an hour, Vaughan was caught and bowled by a man of 35, born in Pakistan who makes his living from selling fridges and freezers and who bowls about as slowly as anyone can.

Imagine Derek Underwood's slower ball; that is Ajaz Akhtar's quick one. He's quite a performer and includes Darryl Cullinan among his trophy victims.

Yorkshire won comfortably even though they had been bowled out for 54 by Essex only 48 hours earlier, but along the way there were moments that shocked those of us who have been exposed to the full force of Ashes cricket and the World Cup this winter.

When Akhtar appealed optimistically for lbw, two of the slips turned their back on the proceedings; clearly Australian mind games have not yet reached Cambridgeshire. The man at deep mid off, not far from my seat, kept applauding the batsmen's strokes, as well as one over that went for 19 and a six that went into the nearby woods. Steve Waugh would have cried.

Sixty miles down the road, Hussain was also out to an Akhtar — Mohammad bowling off breaks — proving that nothing has changed in English cricket.

The captains cannot make runs, kindly ladies brought half a dozen reporters enough food to feed an army, deep mid on continued to clap every Yorkshire boundary (in a score of 299 off 50 overs) and the same little boys queued a second time for Vaughan's signature as soon as he was out.

Is this the atmosphere Yuvraj Singh will learn to relish as Yorkshire's new pro? County matches have a greater edge than this cup-tie but the intensity is still not to be compared with an Ashes Test.

It is English cricket's greatest weakness and, paradoxically, also its greatest strength.