Neil Drysdale on Monday: Perhaps we should be accustomed to the spectacle of English sportsmen blubbering in front of the cameras by now. Yesterday, Michael Vaughan followed in Paul Gascoigne's queasy tradition.
Perhaps we should be accustomed to the spectacle of English sportsmen blubbering in front of the cameras by now. Paul Gascoigne, who was acclaimed in literary circles as a "priapic monolith" at the 1990 World Cup, started the trend for lachrymose outbursts and Michael Vaughan followed in the same queasy tradition yesterday.
The former England cricket captain relinquished his role amid the sort of scramble for photographs and hushed reverence for what the man at the centre of attention was saying that is normally reserved for the deaths of monarchs or service personnel.
Yet, in truth, there was nothing especially surprising about the Lancastrian-born Yorkshire batsman's departure from the role, given the fashion in which he has struggled since returning from a serious knee injury last spring after nearly a year on the sidelines.
Prior to that setback, he deserves lavish praise for the magnificent fashion in which he marshalled his forces, en route to a deserved Ashes series victory in 2005.
His cerebral leadership skills and imperious batsmanship in the early stages of his tenure were a combination which proved altogether too much for the likes of Graeme Smith and Ricky Ponting, let alone the feeble West Indies and New Zealand ensembles that were routed by opponents who, briefly, shone as brightly as any England unit in decades.
None the less, Vaughan's recent form has been wretched - he has a mere 40 runs in his last five innings and averages just 22 in his most recent 10 Tests - and he acknowledged as much in his resignation address, following Smith's sublime unbeaten 154 at Edgbaston, which not only secured South Africa's maiden series triumph in England since 1965, but also consigned the 33 year-old to his first experience of back-to-back Test defeats.
In which light, although he moved on from thanking his parents and the Barmy Army long enough to dispense with the Kleenex and voice his opinion that he still has the hunger and ability to return to international cricket, it is difficult to envisage Vaughan achieving that aim unless he manages a recovery of truly Lazarus proportions.
To his credit, he has no illusions about the scale of the challenge. "You have got to deliver out in the middle and I am not doing that at the moment. I am an experienced player, so I will have to come up with a formula to give myself the best chance to deliver when the pressure is on," said Vaughan.
"I have done it before and I am sure I will do it again. I had every ambition to lead the England team to the next Ashes series in 2009, but my mind has not been working well and I feel as if I have run out of steam.
"The best thing is for me to try and get back to being the best batsman I can be, and I will still have all the experience and knowledge to pass on to the new captain, if he wants it."
However, with Paul Collingwood also confirming his exit as his country's ODI captain, Matthew Hoggard apparently airbrushed from the Test picture in perpetuity, and Marcus Trescothick having suffered sufficient mental trauma to have ruled out any return to the international circuit, there is a hiatus at the centre of the squad.
One also suspects that the England selectors, already pilloried for picking Darren Pattinson and persisting with Tim Ambrose, will face fresh criticism when, as is widely anticipated, Kevin Pietersen is unveiled as the helmsman of both the Test and ODI sides this afternoon.
It isn't simply that Pietersen is about as English as biltong, Biko and P W Botha, nor even that he appears short of the experience required to confront Ponting's personnel in less than 12 months.
No, worse still, he has demonstrated alarming signs throughout his England career of following in the footsteps of such maverick individuals as Brian Lara, whose accumulation of runs was accompanied by the disintegration of the team over which he held sway.
Consider, for instance, the idiocy which marked his behaviour at Headingley last month, where he walked to the crease with England needing him to bat for three sessions, smashed 13 from four deliveries and flung away his wicket immediately thereafter.
Even at Edgbaston, his 94, masterly in execution as it was, finished with a precipitate stroke and a tame dismissal. Whereas his nemesis, Smith, remained defiant to the end in steering the Proteas to success.
That is why Pietersen will be a massive gamble in the five-day version of the game. Basically, nobody knows if he has the intelligence, intuition and instinct which bonds a group of individuals into a team or whether he is too selfish for the job.
At his best, Vaughan boasted an attacking flair, but also a capacity for grinding down opponents, even if it meant blocking them into submission. Ditto his predecessors, Nasser Hussain and Michael Atherton. Pietersen, though, is a soloist, a gifted player, but a one-man band. And ultimately, they are renowned for versatility, not harmony.
And another thing . . .
Scotland's under-performing batsmen again failed to respond to the gauntlet which had been laid down by John Blain, their prolific paceman, in collapsing to defeat against Ireland at Stormont in the World Twenty20 qualifying tournament on Saturday, writes Neil Drysdale.
An improved effort against Bermuda yesterday may mask some deficiencies but nobody should be remotely surprised at the repeated failures of the top order to advance beyond skittish 20s into the sort of scores which might suggest they have learned lessons in the five years since their admission into the NCL.
Since certain members of the Scottish party seem to regard criticism as akin to treachery, I will leave it to statistics to highlight the fashion in which some of the most experienced performers are the Ratner's of world cricket - good at low-value cameos, but incapable of providing genuine, diamond-crusted knocks.
Thus, before yesterday, Fraser Watts had 135 caps and averaged 23.62, Colin Smith 158 at 24.81, Neil McCallum 66 at 24.28 and Richie Berrington, of whom great things are expected, has 12 appearances at 15.33. Ryan Watson and Gavin Hamilton are the only regulars who average above 30 and neither extend to 32.
More worryingly, most of these players have stacked up runs against the associate nations, who have been denied the same exposure as the Scots to develop amidst the English counties.
Blain is absolutely spot-on. Some of these fellows need to shape up or face the chop. Time, perhaps, for them to accept their failings and stop blaming other people.
