Fractured hope

He has been the man behind the English renaissance. But since a knee injury laid him low, his side has looked a struggling unit, badly missing the the dynamism and energy of his leadership

Michael Owen has been rendered hors de combat. Wayne Rooney almost missed the World Cup. Ashely Giles is unaware of his cricketing future and Andrew Flintoff is laid low by fitness woes. This has been a season of injuries for England.

The season started with the knee injury of Michael Vaughan. Since he returned home from Baroda in March this year, there has been little hope of his recovery. He has already missed two series and is set to be out of two more, including the winter’s all-important Ashes.

On Wednesday, Vaughan was doing ‘club duty’ for Yorkshire. But it was not on the field. The England captain, along with county and country teammate Matthew Hoggard, cut the tape to inaugurate Yorkshire’s new retail shop at Headingley. Then he went to the ground to witness a Twenty20 game, perhaps wondering when — and also whether — he would get back to action.

Vaughan was briefly in action recently for his club. But he soon realised that he had suffered a recurrence of his knee problem. He suspects a hole in his knee joint and the recovery period could be between 10 weeks to 10 months, depending on the treatment he chooses. He is sure to be out of the upcoming home series against Pakistan and chances of his participation in the Ashes — according to reports — are bleak.

Without Vaughan at the helm, England have looked a struggling unit, the dynamism and energy that won the Ashes last summer being conspicuously absent. Andrew Flintoff, Andrew Strauss and Marcus Trescothick all led England but none looked as imaginative, effective and authoritative as Vaughan. On Wednesday, Vaughan declined to answer about his injury but he believes he is “some way” from being ready. “I know it’s hard for people to accept that I am playing for Yorkshire, and not England,” he said, after playing a match for his club recently.

The return of Vaughan is crucial to England’s fortunes despite the lion-hearted efforts of Flintoff.

Writes Tim de Lisle, a former editor of Wisden Online, in a web site: “England badly need Vaughan to play in the winter’s Ashes, and they need his brains and his guts more than his runs. He plays one big handsome innings per series, plus the odd fifty (he averages 43 in 64 Tests and 28 in 74 ODIs). He has matured into a less extreme version of Mike Brearley — not quite such a genius at captaincy, nor such a struggler with the bat (Brearley averaged 22), but definitely more influential as a leader than a batsman.”

Immediately after winning the Ashes, Vaughan released Calling the Shots, a book describing his experience as the English captain. His earlier book was A Year in the Sun: The Captain’s story, in which he writes about his “phenomenal and fortuitous year of 2002-03” during which he had a sort of “Bradmanesque form”. During that period, he had plundered seven centuries in 12 Tests and became the world’s best Test batsman of the year. But his best moment, he writes, was the one with the ball which got him the wicket of Sachin Tendulkar!

Vaughan lives in Sheffield along with his parents, Dee and Graham. He married his Irish childhood girlfriend Nichola Shannon in September 2003 at the home of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. He’s a doting husband and an equally doting father. In the middle of a Test, he rushed to hospital where his wife delivered their first daughter. It sparked widespread criticism. Even his own parents criticised him. “The country comes first,” his mother said. “I did not attend Michael’s birth,” his father remarked. “I was criticised... I didn’t give a toss,”  Vaughan replied.

Holding the “the fifth most important job in England”, Vaughan is loaded heavily with major responsibilities, both on and off the field. But he manages to balance it all admirably.

England need his balancing and the leadership qualities.  England would be praying, the country’s season of injury ends soon — at least before the winter’s Ashes in Australia.