Following the resignation (sic) of Duncan Fletcher, a new coach in Peter Moores will be leading the team off the field, but who will be leading the team on the field? No-one has questioned that Michael Vaughan’s position as Test captain may be under threat, but another poor, admittedly One-Day, series with the bat has left doubt’s over his ability with the bat. Since taking the Test Captaincy, Vaughan’s average has fallen to 36, compared to an average of 50 without the captaincy. This is still a decent average for a player who both inspires and drives his team to Test victories. I don’t think there are many English cricket fans out there who wouldn’t argue that the missing Vaughan was a crucial factor in last winters Ashes whitewash. Despite this, Vaughan’s position in the One-Day side is under threat, and with this comes questions regarding his Test position. Of the 9 Test playing nations in 2006, all of them had the same ODI captain as Test captain. Can Michael Vaughan continue to be England’s Test captain if he is not deemed good enough to be in the One-Day side? It is entirely possible that Peter Moores look to engineer a similar decision to that of England Football coach Steve McClaren, who in an attempt to freshen up the side and rid England of the staleness that had set in during the final year of Sven Goran Eriksson’s reign, made the decision to drop England’s World Cup captain David Beckham. Vaughan has stated that he will not be resigning his One-Day position, but a poor World Cup, in which he hit just 209 runs at an average of 23, and if you exclude the final match when England were already out of the tournament, an average of just 16.25 means that his selection as an upper order batsman has be under threat. There have been calls for him to drop down a few rungs, especially with the fact that Ravi Bopara batted at number 3 against the West Indies, and batted well. However, this wouldn’t solve all the problems. He is not a natural lower-order batsman, and playing him any lower than number 4 would stink of fitting him in because he has to be in the team, and not because he deserves to. A possible saver for Vaughan could be that there is no obvious replacement for Vaughan at the top of the order. Neither Strauss, Joyce nor Bell hit their potential over the World Cup, and the England selectors seem reluctant to overburden Andrew Flintoff by pushing him further. However, should the selectors decide to remove the One-Day captaincy from Vaughan, could we conceivably have a captain for both forms of the game? New Zealand announced yesterday, with Stephen Flemings resignation as One-Day captain that they were set to try this. Is it possible for England to have two captains? Vaughan as Test captain, and possibly either Collingwood or Strauss in the One-Day side. What happens though if Vaughan’s form merits a One-Day place? Would the new captain feel threatened by Vaughan? Nasser Hussain felt he couldn’t continue with the Test captaincy once he had resigned the One-Day captaincy. Could this lead to frictions between the two different sides? Over-use of a player in the Test side could lead to less than optimal performances in the One-Day side. The England selectors, and indeed Michael Vaughan have a lot of questions to be answered over the next couple of weeks before England can look ahead, and put a disastrous winter behind them.
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