Cricket: 'i Got to 20 and Thought There's a Hundred in Me'

Michael Vaughan, the returning England captain, said last night that his comeback hundred in his first Test since December 2005 was "as fine a feeling as I've ever felt in the game", adding that it seemed like destiny to make it at his home ground.

"To go out there and produce it when it seemed the whole country was looking to see how Michael Vaughan was going to react this week was really pleasing," he said. "My celebration was a mixture of lots of emotions. To have the crowd cheering was a feeling I haven't had for a long time, and it's what you play the game for. That's as fine a feeling as I've ever felt in the game. I felt all week I was going to get some runs. I could envisage myself scoring a hundred. I just had this sense it was going to happen. I got to 20 and thought, there's a 100 in me today."

Vaughan, who made his runs in front of Nick London, the surgeon who operated on his knee last year, spoke of a long, dark road to recovery and admitted that his enforced break from Test cricket, stretching back to the third Test against Pakistan in Lahore in November 2005, had at times led him to question himself.

"You have to prove to yourself that you can play at this level," he said. "I know I'm a good player but when you've had an 18-month lay-off there are always doubts in the back of your mind about whether you're going to see the ball, whether you're going to react, whether your feet are going to move. To score a hundred under pressure is probably the most pleasing aspect.

"In terms of innings I've played, I put that right up there just for the pressure. It stands with the innings I played against Australia at Old Trafford in 2005. I knew by coming in having not played for three weeks I was under pressure. But I'd rather play under that amount of pressure than take the easy option of getting myself into great nick first. I feel I'm due a bit of luck with my injuries and hopefully this is the start of a long run in the team."

South Africa's former fast bowler Allan Donald has been appointed on a five-week consultancy basis to work with England's pace bowlers until the end of the one-day series against West Indies, which finishes on July 7. The 40-year-old will start before the third Test at Old Trafford on June 7, but a spokesman for the England and Wales Cricket Board last night refused to rule out a longer stint. "We need to see how everyone gets on," he said.

Bill Johnston, a member of Don Bradman's 1948 "Invincibles", has died in Sydney at the age of 85. The left-armer played 40 Tests for Australia from 1947-55 and was a slow bowler who turned to pace. He took 160 wickets in all at 23.91 and was one of the spearheads of the unbeaten side with 27 of them. He also finished the 1953 tour with a freakish batting average of 102. He took 554 first-class wickets for Victoria and was one of Wisden's Cricketers of the Year in 1949. There are now only five surviving members of Bradman's squad - Arthur Morris, Neil Harvey, Sam Loxton, Bill Brown and Ron Hamence.