Michael Vaughan could play in the Ashes

But he won't.

Michael Vaughan reckons that he's fit to play again and that he only needs to regain match fitness - that supreme level of physical well-being that can only be attained by standing around on a cricket pitch shouting: 'Come on. Let's get another two wickets before tea.'

There's talk of his being available for the third Test in Perth, but frankly it isn't going to happen.

Much as Vaughan is a crucial part of England's side, particularly as captain, the selectors are unlikely to take much of a gamble when there's so little reason. Already England are wondering which of Ian Bell, Alastair Cook and Paul Collingwood will be dropped - all of whom have been hugely successful this year. If Vaughan were to return, it would mean a second of those three missing out in favour of a player of questionable physical hardiness with no Test matches under his belt for a long time.

On the other hand, if things are going badly, there's Vaughan's record in Australia to take into account. During the last tour, playing in a side who were being massively outplayed, Vaughan scored over 600 runs including three huge hundreds.

Plus, he won the Ashes that time.

Michael Vaughan's still intact

England were beaten again today. Let's gloss over that part. In fact, let's completely ignore it.

Michael Vaughan played! And he survived! In addition to this, he opened the batting and played a pull shot. It was like the glory days when England only lost 4-1 in Australia rather than 5-0.

Most cricketing sages are saying that it's stupid that Michael Vaughan's in England's one-day squad and that he's captain. They say he was never much good as a one-day player - which is true - and that he's likely to still be a little preoccupied with his knee - which is also probably true.

On the other hand, it just feels a damn sight better to have Michael Vaughan around looking determined and saying half-interesting things at press conferences, doesn't it? Michael Vaughan's a proven international captain and he doesn't let things slide.

We're happier even if we're kidding ourself. We don't care. Kidding yourself is de rigueur for England supporters right now, otherwise things all get a bit negative and you end up spending a large percentage of your time sleeping because you're not interested in anything except crying and feeling guilty.

We're drafting a World Cup-winning England one-day team at the moment. We're going to ink Michael Vaughan in as opener, even though that wasn't the plan. We've realised that faint positive vibes as a result of harking back to the golden days is a far more realistic target than actually trying to devise a side that could beat another group of international cricketers.

Michael Vaughan is fit

Michael Vaughan has recovered. His injury feels fine. Mal Loye gets dropped. England will try and win.

How the hell do people on proper websites stretch out these stories so much?

Michael Vaughan's 'best' innings not enough

Several people have been saying that Michael Vaughan's 124 against India yesterday was his best innings.

Those people obviously never saw his frankly sublime 177 against Australia in 2002, when the next highest contribution in the innings was just 47. This was a batsman in total command of not just the bowling, but also himself, to paraphrase CLR James.

In that same year he can boast of 145 against the same opponents in Melbourne and 183 in Sydney. Just prior to that Ashes series during India's previous tour, a round 100 in the Lord's Test and 195 at The Oval were the bread of a gargantuan sandwich, the filling of which was 197 in Nottingham - so it's arguable whether yesterday's hundred was even Michael Vaughan's best innings at Trent Bridge against India.

He can swing a bat a bit though, can Michael. In a totally needless and embarrassing move, we're going to brand Michael Vaughan 'a dude'.

That's right. We're so delighted by Michael Vaughan's current form, we're pretending we're 12 again.

England v India, second Test at Trent Bridge, day four
England 198 all out (Zaheer Khan 4-59)
India 481 (Sachin Tendulkar 91, Sourav Ganguly 79, Dinesh Karthik 77, Wasim Jaffer 62, Monty Panesar 4-101)
England 355 all out (Michael Vaughan 124, Paul Collingwood 63, Andrew Strauss 55, Zaheer Khan 5-75)
England

Michael Vaughan sent to bed without any tea

Here we see a snapshot of that infamous day when Michael Vaughan and Ashley Giles played cricket down the drive using Michael's dad's Jaguar as a set of stumps.

Michael's dad brought the case to the ICC who ruled that Michael Vaughan had 'acted contrary to the spirit of the game'.

Michael's mum was also moved to tell Ashley's mum, because the pair had foolishly been playing 'in their best clothes'.

Michael Vaughan can't be arsed captaining the one-day side or summat like that

Michael Vaughan has resigned England's one-day captaincy. It would seem that there's a fair chance he won't appear in the team at all.

That would be quite sad, because it would mean that he had failed in one-day cricket and the vast majority of England supporters don't want that. They want Michael Vaughan to be a success in one-day cricket, as he is in Test cricket.

Many people, us included, still kind of think that Michael Vaughan could be a one-day success, but the evidence has been stacking up solely on one side for years now. It's just wishful thinking to believe otherwise and wishful thinking has no place in sport at this level.

Trust us. Wishful thinking's never got us an England call-up. Maybe the selectors will be swayed by the dynamite case we presented in our previous update.

Wishes that we're still waiting on:
Being picked for England
Finding a fiver
Never having to speak to anyone on the phone ever again
Magic poncho
Thinking about something other than death during the winter months

Michael Vaughan: A hundred at Headingley in his comeback

Michael Vaughan scored a hundred. We're delighted.

Like many England supporters, we've subconsciously come to associate Michael Vaughan's presence with a resilient and ultimately victorious England side.

Even the World Cup couldn't colour that rose-tinted view. That was the other Michael Vaughan - One-Day Michael Vaughan. One-Day Michael Vaughan's crap.

Test Michael Vaughan returned yesterday and in some style. When he played that first pull shot, you thought 'he'll get a hundred', knowing you were kidding yourself, but still clinging to that ridiculous hope that everything would be all right if Vaughan were back.

When he played that cover drive - the one that's too classy for anyone to reproduce in anything so mundane as a textbook - you actually started to believe he'd get a hundred for real.

Then he did get a hundred. The 'Vaughan's there, England are the best in the world' fiction can limp on.

And on.

England v West Indies, second Test at Headingley
England 366-5 (Michael Vaughan 103, Kevin Pietersen 130)

Michael Vaughan's one-day career

'Michael Vaughan's terrible at one-day cricket. Let's drop him.' No sooner had everyone agreed this than what do you know, he plays a splendid one-day innings as England chase down 300.

79 off 68 balls wasn't the finest innings of all time, but it was exactly what England have been crying out for all tournament (and before that).

England should still drop him though. It's clear that this was the kind of innings that Michael Vaughan should be playing regularly and could be playing regularly. What's probably stopping him is his own miserable one-day record, which is somehow born of itself. He's conscious of his poor record when he goes out to bat and maybe wants to redress it too much.

To paraphrase ourself: It's like when you're trying to use a urinal and some guy with a six-foot sabre is screaming: 'Come on! Come on! Do it!', at you. Ordinarily, you're quite capable, but it becomes 'a thing'. Michael Vaughan's one-day record has become 'a thing' to him and there's nothing that can be done about that. It's too late.

The other point is that he's old enough that England can realistically drop him on age grounds. One-day cricket's all about the World Cup and by the next one Vaughan will be 36. England are planning for the future, so they can drop him now with no loss of face.

On the other hand, if he gets back into fine form in Test cricket, this is perhaps the only way he could overcome 'the thing' aspect. It still depends on his being dropped from the one-day side though.

Michael Vaughan doesn't need any more one-day experience before the next World Cup. He's got plenty. Drop him. If he happens to turn into Viv Richards at some point during the next four years - fine - bring him back. Let him effect this renaissance away from one-day internationals though.

Michael Vaughan's one-day batting

... is massively infuriating.

Michael Vaughan just can't seem to envisage batting ever getting any easier during a one-day innings. He started well enough today. He wasn't scoring quickly, but he'd got through an awkward new-ball spell where timing the ball had seemed impossible.

He hit a couple of nice fours, but you could tell he really felt like he wasn't doing enough. He kept going for the pull when it clearly wasn't happening and sure enough, he played on to his stumps.

Kevin Pietersen had just started finding the fence. The best thing Vaughan could have done would have been to stay around, wait until the field went back and then played singles, keeping wickets in hand until the closing overs. It really wasn't long until the fielding restrictions were due to end. Then it would have been a different game.

As it was, all he achieved was the loss of his wicket. As we write, England have now lost too many wickets and are taking what they can from the closing overs.

The same goes for Ian Bell. It remains to be seen whether Ian Bell was a great choice as a World Cup player to watch. So far, we're sorry everybody.