'I'm mad to get back into the England team'

Michael Vaughan, in the Sunday Telegraph, writes about the reasons that contributed to his resignation as England captain and his determination to get back into the England team.

I’ve given myself until November 10 to decide my best way back. To be the best player I can be, my decision-making has to be spot-on, and I felt recently I was making some wrong decisions as captain and a batsman. The hunger is still there all right – I’m mad to get back into the England team.

Four out of the five England captains in the past 20 years, when every Test match has been televised and media scrutiny has never been greater, have resigned in highly-stressed circumstances, writes Scyld Berry in the Sunday Telegraph.

Part of the reason for Vaughan’s resignation can be traced to the England tour of New Zealand. When he arrived there for the Test series, he found the England one-day players already 'jaded’. Partly this was the consequence of touring: the longer a tour, Vaughan believes, the less effective the players are. But the objective reader, wishing the England captaincy to be a more sustainable job, can also take this as a veiled criticism of the management style of Peter Moores, as it was then, when highly focused on training. After two Twenty20 internationals in New Zealand, and five one-day games, the players should have been livelier, instead of producing flat performances which were only just sufficient to win the Test series 2-1.

England selector Geoff Miller, in an interview with Stephen Brenkley in the Independent on Sunday, talks about Michael Vaughan’s resignation, the surprising selection of Darren Pattinson, and English cricket’s new phase under Kevin Pietersen’s leadership.

About Pattinson's selection

"I was surprised at the reaction because it was unwarranted from Darren's viewpoint," he said. "There was a logical reason behind it. We'd had a special meeting about it and gone through all the contenders, everybody in the frame. He had proved himself at that stage, had created a feeling and was the kind of bowler we wanted. On the morning, circumstances conspired and as the swing bowler he was the choice. Will it be a long time before we make a selection like that again? The natural answer would be yes but I can't really say because a situation can crop up. What I do know is that what Darren had to deal with was unfair and that the buck stops with me."