England are preparing to embark on 14 months of cricket that will lead into next summer's Ashes series. Even though that includes the forthcoming series against New Zealand, a tough series against South Africa then winter assignments in India and West Indies it is difficult not to let the mind drift towards next July.
Michael Vaughan begins this summer under pressure, his form with the bat has not impressed in recent times and early-season hasn't been easy. But as he tells Stephen Brenkley in The Independent on Sunday he has no intention of moving aside yet and is enjoying a period of his career where he is pain-free.
By the time the 2009 Ashes are done, he might conceivably have led England in 65 Test matches. The whole topic is complicated by his long lay-off with a knee injury that still requires careful management. He missed 16 consecutive matches, but the selectors still insisted he was captain. It was an odd period of limbo which led to a 5-0 Ashes reversal and paradoxically reinforced Vaughan's position. Around the team now he exudes easy authority, but you wonder if this might stray into the divine right of kings territory.
There is no question that Vaughan wants to hang on and that he believes he is doing so for the right reasons. "Part of this job is dealing with a lot of the external stuff, and a lot of that is people writing and saying stuff about the captain," he said correctly. "They're possibly not looking at it in the best interests of the England team. There will be a time when there is a right time but I honestly feel this isn't it.
Meanwhile, in his column in the same newspaper, Ian Bell says England can't afford to take the New Zealand team lightly and that it's time he kicked on to the next stage of his career.
I came away with a great deal of respect for them from that tour. They have a lot of players who would get into a lot of teams. They probably aren't as good as many other Test sides, but they have a lot of fighters in there who won't budge easily, and you have to work hard to beat them. So it's important that we start the summer off on a high and take that momentum into the rest of the summer and the Test series beyond that.
