Vaughan won't be coming to Australia

The news England dreaded arrived last night. Michael Vaughan's troublesome knee is more damaged than was previously thought, and he will now definitely miss England's Ashes defence down under later this year.

This is a massive blow for England. As an inspirational and tactically astute captain, he was the player who provided serenity to the English dressing room, which lifted the performances of his players. Without Vaughan, England have lost their way. The ruthlessness is gone, the authority on the field is gone and they just don't look the same. More than that, on England's last tour of Australia, Vaughan was the only England player to achieve anything, with 633 runs from 5 Tests and the Player of the Series award. He will be missed.

I was reminded of an article I read four months ago, written by Tim de Lisle on cricinfo, which noted the curse of English Ashes winning captains. Excerpts below:

Michael Vaughan finds himself in a funny position. It's the fact that he hasn't won a Test since the Ashes, and now he won't have the chance for some time.

He is in distinguished company. England's last Ashes-winning captain, Mike Gatting, never won a Test again after that series in Australia in 1986-87. The one before was David Gower in 1985, and he never won another Test either, chalking up scores of 0-5 in the West Indies and 0-1 against India before being sacked in favour of Gatting, only to return, three years later, for a 0-4 drubbing by ... Australia.

The Ashes winner before that was Mike Brearley, master choreographer of the famous 1981 series. He too never won another Test.

Which begs the question - is Michael Vaughan's career over, at the tender age of 31?

The rest of the article is here.