Michael Vaughan Runs Out of Time to Impress England Selectors

Michael Vaughan's future will again become the subject of mounting speculation tomorrow if, as indications suggest, he is excluded from England's 12 for next week's first Test against West Indies at Lord's. The selectors' likely insistence that Vaughan must show proven championship form before he is given a chance to play again for England will be the greatest challenge yet to his desire to resume the Test career that he abandoned last summer when he resigned in exhaustion from the captaincy.

The mood was sombre at Headingley yesterday as Vaughan faced only two deliveries, before Yorkshire's championship match against Worcestershire succumbed to drizzle and bad light, and then ended the day in deep consultation with his agent, Neil Fairbrother, who had made the trip across the Pennines.

If the selectors have, indeed, resisted the widespread view that Vaughan should play two Tests against West Indies as an unofficial Test trial for the Ashes series in midsummer, he must again decide whether, at 34, he retains both the ambition and love for the game to press his claims over a prolonged period of county cricket. Only a clear statement that he will see out the summer whatever his fate will prevent talk of possible retirement.

Yorkshire would welcome several good years of Vaughan at or near his best but England captains of recent vintage, such as Michael Atherton and Nasser Hussain, had no appetite for the county slog once they stood down from the England captaincy.

James Whitaker was the England selector at Chester-le-Street last week for Durham's championship opener against Yorkshire, a high-quality match in which Vaughan made 24 and 20. He showed a return to form with a near-faultless 82 against Sussex at Headingley on Sunday.

But in his brief opportunity he has not answered the call from his successor as captain, Andrew Strauss, to earn his return with weight of runs. Strauss said: "If he has scored enough runs, both for him to feel at the top of his game and for the selectors to feel that the experience he brings would have a massive effect on the side, then he will be considered but there are other candidates for that spot, including the guys who played there this winter."

The selectors are expected to omit Owais Shah from the Lord's 12. Shah failed to cement his place at No3 when given an opportunity in the West Indies series and since has not played a single game in the Indian Premier League for Delhi Dare­devils when he could have been scoring early season runs for Middlesex. The same is true of Paul Collingwood but it is Shah who will suffer.

England will turn again to Warwickshire's Ian Bell, who impressed with the professional manner in which he responded to being dropped in the Caribbean and who has already scored two hundreds against Somerset this season, even if the championship century came on such a flat Taunton track that many dismissed it as worthless. A player accused throughout his career of making soft runs found himself criticised for making even more soft runs. Had he made 501, the outcry would have forced him into retirement.

Bell has talked about making himself "undroppable". "You need to make hundreds consistently to keep your place in the team," he said. "That is something I will address and, when I get my next chance, I will try to nail it."

Andrew Flintoff is already back at home, recuperating after what the ECB has described as "routine and successful keyhole surgery to repair a slight tear in a degenerative meniscus in his right knee". In other words: degenerative – could have happened anytime so don't blame the IPL; successful – thanks to our speedy reaction, he will be fit in time for the Twenty20 World Cup. Flintoff's absence should assure Ravi Bopara of a place in the 12-strong squad but, unless the weather is unsettled, six drawn Lord's Tests in succession will force England to field a five-strong attack.

The need therefore to find an all-rounder with a stronger seam-bowling suit than Bopara should tilt the selection in favour of a debut for Yorkshire's Tim Bresnan. He should also be an automatic pick for the Twenty20 World Cup; there is no better "death" bowler in the country.

Vaughan's future has focused all the attention on England's batting order. But the issue is how to assemble a fast-bowling quartet capable of repeating the Ashes success of 2005. At least Ryan Sidebottom returns for Nottinghamshire at Old Trafford today after an achilles operation with the admission that in the last year "everything has gone wrong".