Vaughan snub good news for Yorkshire (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Vaughan snub good news for Yorkshire

1:57pm Friday 2nd January 2009

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It would hardly be the right thing to admit but I bet Anthony McGrath was rubbing his hands when England announced their squad for the West Indies.

The newly-installed Yorkshire captain must have been delighted to see Adil Rashid’s name among the 18 bound for the Caribbean.

But deep down, McGrath would have been just as happy to see a certain Michael Vaughan once again left out.

After all the speculation that the former England skipper was in line for a recall, he will once again have to make do with watching it on Sky like the rest of us.

Vaughan may have been centrally-contracted but he remains on the outside looking in. And that spells great news – at least initially – for Yorkshire.

For the first time since he broke into the international ranks, Vaughan will begin a domestic campaign with a huge amount to prove for his country.

Vaughan’s omission has sparked controversy, with rumours of a rift between Kevin Pietersen and coach Peter Moores.

KP, so we are led to believe, was all for having his experience back on board – and his decision-making in India showed how green he still is captaining at the top level.

But Moores, according to the same accounts, said no because of Vaughan’s lack of form.

The only way to end the stalemate is for the former captain to produce a stack of runs. With the carrot of an Ashes series later in the summer, that is some incentive.

Hence the win-win situation for McGrath. He gets a fully fit and highly-motivated batsman from minute one.

Vaughan hardly offered the strongest argument for the selectors this time around. Just 43 runs in four championship innings for Yorkshire last year before finishing the campaign injured – it’s not an overwhelming case for banging the door down.

But now he will head for the United Arab Emirates for Yorkshire’s warm-weather pre-season training like everyone else; in effect, another county cricketer with a dream of playing for his country. Albeit one with an impressive back catalogue.

Vaughan believes the opportunity is still there and the selectors, in public at least, have made it clear that big runs will always be a powerful currency in their thinking.

The bookies, though, are shrewder judges. One is even offering odds against Vaughan donning the three lions again.

They deal in hard-nosed facts and an average of less than 17 from his last five Test outings is a damning statistic.

But the 34-year-old remains confident in his own abilities to prove the odds-makers wrong. Nobody will ever forget how he did that during that magical summer against the Aussies four years ago.

Sporting realists will say that sentiment has no place. The golden summer of 2005 has long gone; English cricket has suffered because of the blind loyalty shown to those Ashes heroes.

Nonsense. Half the battle against the Australians is in the head – the mind games in which they have excelled for the past two decades.

Opponents with supposedly big reputations have been reduced to shells by a well-placed jibe from the slip cordon. You need nerves of steel to rise above that.

The Vaughan of old possessed that quality in abundance. Whether the 2009 version is the same, we shall see in the next few months.

I suspect there is plenty of life left yet. And that will be great news for England – and McGrath’s Yorkshire.