Battle of Wounded Knee Must Be Won Before Captain Returns to Front

The chances of Michael Vaughan's hamstring recovering in time for him to be declared fit when England leave for the World Cup in around a fortnight have been placed at no better than 50-50. That assessment comes from a member of the England hierarchy, so they are not being unduly upbeat. Unless the selectors are going to lay themselves open to heaps of criticism, Vaughan, not to mention James Anderson and Jon Lewis, has to be free of any sign of injury or discomfort by the time the plane leaves. There can be no ifs, no buts.

The first match, against New Zealand, takes place on March 16 in St Lucia and could be one of the pivotal ones for England. In theory that gives Vaughan a month. But to make any progress in the tournament the team from the start will need continuity not ambiguity. The idea that someone can just be replaced if he is not fit is too glib for words.

The coach, Duncan Fletcher, will want to have in his mind who his captain is and what his first-choice team is before the aircraft leaves the deck and then to spend the two warm-up games in St Vincent, on March 5 and 9, against Bermuda and Australia respectively, in going over strategies and getting that same best XI used to local conditions and playing together. Fitness tests and uncertainty should not be on the agenda.

The problem, of course, is how do Vaughan and the two bowlers prove their fitness? In Vaughan's case the attempt will no doubt involve stringent and arduous work at the Academy in Loughborough, under the direction of doctors, physiotherapists and fitness trainers, all of which will prove nothing unless it is to rule him out.

He underwent the most gruelling rehab of his life following his knee operation, and hats off to him for having the single-mindedness to go through with it, but his declaration of fitness at the end of it all, after more than a year without international cricket and precious little of any sort anywhere, resulted in him not being available for seven of the 10 games he might have played in. Nor, in the three games he managed, did he spend remotely enough time at the crease to go close to testing whether his knee, the cause of all the trouble in the first place, can withstand the rigours of one-day international cricket, the most intensive form of the game there is.

It is while batting rather than fielding, if anyone needs reminding, that the knee has let him down. So he needs the intensity of full match competition, yet there is none available now. They tried it with the Tri-series and it went belly up. That was his fitness test and he failed it.

Vaughan is too valuable a commodity for the redevelopment of the England Test side next summer for him to be risked now in these circumstances. He is an outstanding Test match captain and batsman whose achievements in one-day cricket are modest by comparison: not a single hundred in 77 matches from a player who has spent most of his time over the past seven years at the top of the order and was once ranked No1 in the world is bewildering. But it speaks of someone who has never quite come to terms with how to adapt.

Without question Vaughan, not least because of his experience, is the man best qualified to lead the side - although those who point to his calmness during the most recent win against New Zealand might do well to remember that not many days before he presided over one of the biggest shambles in recent memory in Perth - but not sufficiently so, given the issue of fitness, to offset the deficiencies elsewhere in his game.

Perhaps, as has been suggested, the selectors see a parallel between Vaughan and Jonny Wilkinson, who overcame injury after injury to make a scintillating return to the England rugby side at a time when most were concerned with his almost total lack of competitive play beforehand and argued against such a hasty comeback.

Vaughan, though, is not one-day cricket's equivalent of Wilkinson, who in any case, equivalently, would not have been risked in a world sevens competition. If we were talking about Ricky Ponting or Brian Lara, then it would be worth a punt. But let us keep Vaughan for what he is exceptional at lest we end up with nothing.