Tonight:
5°c
To gauge just how much Michael Vaughan both loved and cherished being England captain, all you needed to do was witness his resignation statement. Racked with emotion and choking back tears, it was heart rending and by the end we were all willing him to get through it. My word, it hurt him.
It also said a lot about the way he ran his team. It was a family - perhaps too cosy and close knit for some - and Michael had the great skill of being a player's captain. He would party as hard as any of them after a win and offer great support in defeat. Some captains are deliberately aloof and distant, but they rarely command the same level of respect.
What did surprise me was his revelation that he had been considering his position since England's tour of New Zealand five months ago. England won that series having come back from 1-0 down, exhibiting exactly the tough, battling cricketing character that Vaughan admires, and the quality he always demanded of his team. England had also ventured in a new direction on that trip, dropping Steve Harmison and Matthew Hoggard to give youth a chance.
Again, Michael appeared to relish that challenge, and the team remained unchanged for six Tests.
But the wheels have come spinning off since then. In just two games, England have gone from that record selectorial run to losing both captains. We can expect further fall-out when the squad for the final Test of the summer is announced today.
So far as Vaughan was concerned, a pivotal moment appears to have come at Headingley where the selectors suddenly produced Darren Pattinson from nowhere, and the captain felt he had little choice but to play him. This went against many of Vaughan's core values, particularly the question of Pattinson's 'Englishness' and the disruption his inclusion caused to his closely bonded team. Vaughan spoke out afterwards in protest, and quickly found himself in hot water with the selectors. I suspect that was the moment he really knew the time had come.
Vaughan realised then his power base had all but dwindled away from those heady days of 2005. Then, basking in the success of the Ashes, he could do as he pleased and the board and selectors would let him have his way. But then he lost the one-day captaincy, and with it the position of supremacy. It is true that with Paul Collingwood - who has also resigned as captain of that form of the game - the split roles worked as well as they possibly could. But it is never a completely happy arrangement.
More than anything, it was the lack of runs that did for Vaughan in the end. He has just two centuries and four 50s to show for his last 31 innings, all played in privileged positions in the batting order. He tired of being asked about his form before every Test and, of course, as a top quality professional sportsman, his lean trot deeply frustrated him. A team can only carry a batsman for so long - especially since scoring runs has become such a problem for England - and while a struggling captain will be supported by his colleagues for a while, it is not long before his authority begins to erode. Vaughan decided to go before that became an issue.
Of all the England captains I have dealt with, Vaughan was the most approachable, most honest and most interesting. His skilful, thoughtful and steely leadership played a huge part in providing cricket lovers with our proudest moment in a generation when he won the Ashes.
He is also the owner of the most beautiful extra cover drive in the world which, after a short break and then having scored runs with Yorkshire, I really hope we will see again. That remains up to him, of course, and to an extent the man who succeeds him.
It will not be a simple matter in deciding to choose Vaughan to tour India and West Indies this winter because he is not guaranteed a place in the final XI. Vaughan would be horrified at the suggestion that he might become an out-of-sorts former captain stewing in the corner of the dressing room, but it happens and it would be no surprise to me if he is overlooked for the first part of the winter as England, under new leadership, chart their new course.
