Cricket: Vaughan Finds His Form But Yorkshire Stutter

Not for the first time in recent weeks, Michael Vaughan arrived at the crease yesterday under a slight cloud of uncertainty. He was not exactly playing for his international career, which will resume in a fortnight's time against West Indies at Lord's, but Peter Moores took office as England's coach on Tuesday and first impressions count. An innings of 72, his first in the championship since he broke down with a recurrence of his knee injury at Arundel last June, felt suitably indeterminate.

Vaughan will have convinced himself that the summer of 2007 is a chance to wipe the slate clean after the embarrassment of the World Cup. He has made all the right noises about looking forward to working with Moores, who outlined his vision to the England squad at Loughborough on Monday, and last night the national captain took the chance to remind everyone that "Peter and I are pretty similar in the way we think about the game".

But he also knows that his one-day place is up for debate after he averaged only 23 in the Caribbean. Scoring runs for Yorkshire and trying to dispel any doubts that his knee is up to the rigours of a seven-Test summer seem like the only option. This was a pretty good start.

For a while, though, the parallels with the West Indies were almost eerie. The Rose Bowl was three quarters empty, musical instruments were thin on the ground and Vaughan's first scoring shot was a thick inside edge past leg stump. Moments later he almost played on and when, on two, he fell flat on his backside in the middle of the pitch having thought better of a single, it seemed like a metaphor for England's entire World Cup. Only Nic Pothas's failure to gather Chris Benham's underarm shy spared further mishap.

But from there Vaughan - in the side for Craig White - flourished. Revelling in the less claustrophobic fields of the first-class game, he mixed classical cover-drives with deliberate steers to third man, and after lunch swept and cut boundaries off consecutive balls from a below-par Shane Warne.

A first championship hundred for four years was his for the taking when Younis Khan failed to respond to a call for a single to mid-on and Vaughan was beaten back by a return from Stuart Clark, one of England's Ashes tormentors. After three hours and 123 balls of increasingly smooth graft, it was an infuriating way to go.

"It was nice to get a few runs but I thought I was going to get a bigger score," he said. "These things happen. The last few times I've got in I've got run out. It was a bit of a misunderstanding." England will be hoping the communication lines are clearer come Lord's.

Younis made amends for his moment of absent-mindedness by stroking his way to an elegant century for his new county, but of greater relevance to England's brave new world was an impish half-century from Adil Rashid, the 19-year-old leg-spinner who had already contributed 13 wickets and an 86 to Yorkshire's early-season wins over Surrey and Durham.

Three successive off-side fours off James Tomlinson underlined his all-round potential and his partnership of 99 with Younis appeared to have rescued Yorkshire after they had slipped to 183 for five. But with a total of 400 on the cards it went downhill against the second new ball. Younis was trapped by one from James Bruce that kept low, and Rashid hooked carelessly to long leg. The rest followed in a hurry and Hampshire finished the day probably believing they had the edge.