Graphic: Captain's innings - where Michael Vaughan ranks

Michael Vaughan is often said to be England's best captain since Mike Brearley. Surely, though, this does not go far enough. When Vaughan stepped down yesterday afternoon, after five demanding years in the job, England lost one of the best captains in their history. This, after all, is a man who has six more victories as England captain than anybody else, a man who brought back the Ashes after 16 barren years and a batsman who, when on top of his game in Australia six years ago, could have held a place in any world XI of the day.

The decision, I understand, was his and his alone and on the basis that he believed he could no longer continue, it is hard to argue against. The captaincy of England is just about the best job in the world but it is also an all-consuming one. If you take the job seriously, as Vaughan has unquestionably done, then there comes a time when you simply don't want to do it any more. There comes a time when you don't want to spend every evening at dinner ignoring your companions, or your family, thinking about where your next run is coming from, who should be opening the bowling the following morning or how to tell your mate that he is no longer good enough to be in the team. There comes a time when you want the headlines to be about someone else.

As his voice cracked and chin wobbled with emotion, the tears just about held in check, he said that it was both the hardest and the easiest decision he had ever made: the hardest because of the kudos and sheer intellectual (in cricketing terms) challenge of it all; the easiest because it had simply become too much for him. He said that he was no longer himself at home and that he wanted to get “back to being me”. As he said that, I was ever-so briefly transported back a decade; it was a comment that will have resonated with anyone who has held the job and it was the one that was at the heart of his decision.

Although this defeat against South Africa was the tipping point for Vaughan, the job has been eating away at him for a while. He first felt some unease in New Zealand last winter and there were enough signs recently to suggest that the end was coming. He became embroiled in an unseemly post-Headingley selection spat, distancing himself from both Peter Moores and Geoff Miller, and was unusually curt with Jonathan Agnew, the BBC's cricket correspondent, before the Edgbaston Test.

It is Vaughan's association with Moores that should come under the most scrutiny. When Duncan Fletcher resigned in the Caribbean, after eight years in charge, Vaughan was quick to praise the man-management skills of Moores and they enjoyed some early success together. But recently, there were signs that Vaughan's bond with Moores was not nearly as strong as with his predecessor.

Vaughan has been in contact with Fletcher throughout the summer, and when the split opened up after the selection of Darren Pattinson it brought to mind the split between Fletcher and Andrew Flintoff during the last Ashes tour over Monty Panesar's non-selection at Adelaide. Vaughan wanted Simon Jones to play at Headingley but one errant selection and one disagreement should not be enough to break a captain-coach bond that is strong.

The other significant contributing factor in this decision was Vaughan's form with the bat. It becomes incredibly difficult as a captain when you are not doing your job as a player. Successful captaincy springs from the respect you generate from your players - as a leader, decision-maker, human being and as a player - and once you start to worry that the rest of the team are carrying you, then instinctive decision-making becomes near impossible.

So this decision was, in part, to try to get back to being the player he knows he can be. He felt that continuing in the job may have curtailed his career prematurely and now, freed from the burden of captaincy and still young enough at 33 to play for a while yet, there might be another chapter or two to write. Certainly there are enough examples - Ian Botham's renaissance at Headingley in 1981 the game after stepping down from the captaincy being the best - of former captains rediscovering their form.

But Vaughan - who will miss the Oval Test but then make himself available for the winter - is now at the mercy of the new man, who must decide whether he wants to step out of his predecessor's shadow for good, and the whim of the selectors. If the desire is still there, he can play for England again but it will not necessarily be as easy as he thinks.

Who will the new man be? In losing not one but two captains yesterday, Hugh Morris, the managing director of the England team and Miller, the National Selector, gave the clearest hint that they want to unite the role. In fact, during Miller's opening press conference as David Graveney's replacement, he had said that he felt that the two captains' scenario for the Test and one-day teams, was not ideal. Vaughan agreed with those sentiments yesterday, although he added that the arrangement with Collingwood had worked as well as it could.

If Collingwood did go of his own volition, and Morris insisted that he did, then it is a swift change of heart from him. Only weeks ago, after he had been banned at the Oval, Collingwood publicly stated that the job meant everything to him and that he would not do anything to jeopardise it. Nevertheless, the Oval rumpus scarred him and it was not necessarily clear that he had a great tactical feel for the job. Maybe the decision of his great friend Vaughan prompted his own misgivings.

If the selectors do want one man to take on both jobs, there is only one who fulfils the criteria of being worth his place on merit in both teams. That man is Kevin Pietersen. Andrew Strauss has captained England before, with some success, but does not get in the one-day team; Andrew Flintoff has been too badly scarred by his Ashes whitewash to want to revisit the captaincy, and Alastair Cook is too young and green and might not be around the one-day team for much longer.

As much as the selectors have appeared in the recent past to have been taking a cocktail of hallucinogenic drugs before each selection meeting, they surely would not bring in someone from outside. Robert Key is the only name who springs to mind, but this would be too much a bolt from the azure.

The confusion suggests that there has been little forward planning. Vaughan himself has said in the past that he wanted to go on through the next Ashes and so his announcement might have taken Morris and Moores by surprise. Certainly, there was little in the way of guidance from the ECB that a change was imminent when after the match they revealed that the team for the Oval would be announced the following morning. And when Vaughan left the field on Saturday, midway through the afternoon, it was Strauss not Pietersen who was put in charge.

If it does turn out to be Pietersen, then it will be an enormous gamble. Not only does Pietersen have next to no experience of captaincy, he is England's best player, and along with Flintoff their greatest match-winner. In the past, flamboyant characters such as Botham and Flintoff, have found their competitive edge and brilliance dulled rather than sharpened by the extra responsibility. It may be the making of him; if not it will be the breaking of Morris, the man ultimately responsible for the England team.

Yesterday, though, and probably for the last time in his life, the stage belonged to Vaughan. He was emotional, humble, funny and honest as he reflected upon what he will realise in time to have been the greatest days of his professional life. He thanked his team, the back-room staff, the Professional Cricketers' Association, the fans and, most movingly of all, his family. No, Michael, thank you.

Year In The Sun, by Michael Vaughan, Buy the book

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