Vaughan Plot Thickens With Every Net Session
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday November 27, 2006
EVERY time Michael Vaughan enters the nets, as he has on each day of the first Test, whispers of a comeback to save his country grow louder. But the former captain will today leave the squad for Perth to continue his recuperation with England's academy players.
England management maintains he has no immediate plans for match practice, but as he tested out his injured knee in the nets, with England struggling to stay in the first Test, the intrigue surrounding his position continued. "We will make a decision further down the line about when he's ready to play some cricket," a team spokesman said. Vaughan himself is targeting the Boxing Day Test, and he is likely to play in the Lilac Hill Festival match and a two-day tour match before then. With a failing top order, his return presumably could not come quickly enough. "How my knee reacts to cricket and games, and spending a day in the field, only time will tell," Vaughan said at the start of the Test. "But so far the rehab has gone really well and I'm quietly confident that within a month or so I may be available for selection. "I have done lot of twisting and turning in practice - without cricket-orientated skills - and I haven't had any reaction," he told Sky Sports."I just need games of cricket really, spending days in the field and hopefully a few hours at the crease batting, and let's just see how it responds to that sort of activity."At least England's predicament was slightly brighter last night, after Kevin Pietersen and Paul Collingwood led the fightback to drag the Test into a fifth day. Collingwood said his team's spirits had been lifted."We wanted to fight today, we haven't played as well as we can do in the first three days and today was about fight and about pride, a bit of passion, and not just talking about it but going out there and showing it," said Collingwood, who threw away a century by charging Shane Warne on 96. "It was about not just stonewalling, but taking the game up to the Australians and that's the way we need to play"I think it's a bit of excitement, to be honest, knowing that I'm only one shot away from a hundred in Australia. You live and learn by your mistakes. It's easy in hindsight to say I shouldn't have done it but at the time it was a good idea."Collingwood said England's fightback would prove important regardless of what happens today, when Australia will be striving to go 1-0 up by taking the last five English wickets. "We needed a day like this to get our confidence back and prove to ourselves that we can beat Australia," he said.
© 2006 Sydney Morning Herald