IT IS too early to be sure about the long-term significance of the latest setback in Michael Vaughan’s struggle to recover from his serious knee injury, but the Andrew Flintoff era is certain now to be more than just a brief interregnum, lasting at least until the end of the series that began almost perfectly for England yesterday.

If, indeed, King Freddie’s is to be a long reign, it got off to a great start on home soil with a century for Marcus Trescothick on his return to a senior position in the Privy Council and an even more significant first public appearance at court by Alastair Cook.

Playing as Vaughan’s understudy at No 3, Cook played more like his heir; with the mien and presence of a man born to the cricketing purple.

As in his first Test match in Nagpur, when he followed his first-innings 60 with 104 not out, he was every bit as impressive technically as he was temperamentally. Although he missed by only 11 runs a hundred on his first appearance in a home Test — at Lord’s, too — his straight bat, decisive footwork, balance and judgment were all the work of a batsman fully matured at the age of 21. Only his running between the wickets, which almost cost him his wicket on 17 when Muttiah Muralitharan hit the stumps with a throw from mid-on, betrayed his youth.

Until he was out to a loose cut five overs from the close of play, a repeat of his first- innings dismissal a week ago in Worcester, his method was calm, measured, poised and simple during stands of 127 with Trescothick and 99 with Kevin Pietersen.

Pietersen remains to bat on this morning with a first appearance on the Lord’s honours board looming ten months after top-scoring in his first Test there against Australia last season. He built his innings with an encouraging sense of responsibility but still reached his fifty from only 61 balls, with nine fours, accelerating when Mahela Jayawardena took the new ball after relying heavily for most of the day on the tireless guile of Muralitharan.

Pietersen’s reprieve four overs from the close, when brilliantly caught at extra cover off a no-ball from Farveez Maharoof in the same over in which the tall 23-year-old dismissed Cook, neatly epitomised the way that the luck went, as always, with the stronger side.

It was a day on which the worrying news of Vaughan apart, virtually everything went right for England. Flintoff won the toss in such glorious weather that not to have batted first against a team with only one experienced seam bowler would have been negative, even on a relatively grassy pitch on which his own fast bowlers might well have done a lot of damage in the morning.

Jon Lewis had been released to wreak his customary havoc for Gloucestershire, a victim, simply, of unashamed ageism. Of course, there were arguments on both sides. Preferring Sajid Mahmood gives a big chance to a very promising bowler of greater height and pace who, with luck, will justify the selectors this weekend and in future. But it seems harsh on Lewis to condemn him to being a nearly-man because he is 30 and bowls at nearer 80 than 90mph. The decision was taken with an eye to Australia and beyond, but such has been Lewis’s consistency that he would be as likely as any other bowler to take a hatful of wickets at the Gabba in November.

All cricketing events this summer will be played out with half an eye on Brisbane and the Ashes, so England’s good start, before a happy, shirt-sleeved crowd that filled all but a few of the seats, was ideal. It was tough in the morning for Trescothick and Andrew Strauss, but they played creditably straight and late. Strauss, in particular, was quick to pounce on the bad ball, especially off the back foot, with a pull off Maharoof added to cuts and one especially crisp force off the back foot off Nuwan Kulasekera Inevitably, it was Chaminda Vaas who got past the bat most, but he has lost the extra yard of pace that used to be added to his natural away-swing from the left-handers and he had to be content with moral successes. Not that “content” was the appropriate word when he curled a ball past Pietersen’s defensive push early in the final session. Pietersen had made only four and, despite the forward stride, should have been given out leg-before.

By the time that Strauss became Muralitharan’s first Test victim at Lord’s, caught low and expertly at slip off the first ball of the last over before lunch, propping forward to the orthodox off break, the pitch had fully dried and the familiar, reliable Lord’s bounce was all in the batsmen’s favour.

For Cook, coming in against the maestro immediately after an interval, the challenge was hardly less than it had been against Harbhajan Singh in Nagpur, but he sorted the doosra from the orthodox turner in just the same way and was soon playing fewer strokes off the edges of his bat than Trescothick.

That is not in any way to detract from the importance of Trescothick’s almost predictable hundred on his return to the side, both for himself and the team. He drove powerfully through mid-off and extra cover, left the ball with his usual skill and had hit 17 fours and a six when, much like his opening partner, he edged a forward defensive to slip.

“It’s nice to move on and keep things rolling,” Trescothick said after a fourteenth Test hundred that pushes his crisis in India farther into the buried past.

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