‘Without 2002-03 there was no chance of 2005’ – Vaughan’s road to Ashes glory

Michael Vaughan . 2005.

In the greatest series of all, England’s captain and a longed-for Ashes victory.

Before Vaughan’s life-changing moment, when he lifted the urn at The Oval, came a first brush with the Australians almost three years earlier.

The best Test team of all time, arguably the best, steamrolled England 4-1 down under in 2002-03 to win the match. Captain Steve Waugh, Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist and the rest.

However, Vaughan learned valuable lessons about how to defeat the men wearing baggy green caps while on his only tour of Australia. Three hundreds, and a total of 633 runs bettered in this century by only two other visiting batters in Australia – Alastair Cook and Virat Kohli.

Vaughan spent some time being called the world’s best batter, and more importantly, he was a part of the England captaincy. Twenty years on from the series that defined his career, he says there was “no chance” of victory in 2005 without the experience of 2002-03.

What should I do once I’ve won the captaincy? Vaughan tells BBC Sport.

“I looked back on the captains and players I had coached.” Steve Waugh was the standout. His methods, his manner.

” In county cricket, teams would bowl part-time bowlers before lunch to get through the overs. Every time I watched Steve Waugh, he would say, “Bowl bouncers round the wicket,” in the over before lunch. He’d make those periods the hardest.

“Like going on a field for a walk. I’d walk on to the field and say hello to everyone. Steve Waugh would simply look at you and make you feel about three feet tall if you introduced yourself. He intimidated with field settings, small words. not a form of abuse It helps when you’ve got an attack of Warne, McGrath, Lee and Jason Gillespie but he did not get the credit for his tactical nous”.

Vaughan won 16 Tests and one hundred on an average of 31.15 during the first half of his England career without being absent.

In 2002, Vaughan tweaked his technique because dismissals to deliveries that nipped back to the right-hander were “doing my nut in”. In his seven home Test matches against Sri Lanka and India, Vaughan plundered 900 runs thanks to a previous trigger action. Only two men – Graham Gooch and Donald Bradman – have scored more in an English Test summer.

Vaughan arrived in Australia with Sachin Tendulkar, an outstanding Indian author, who suggested he attack McGrath whenever necessary. Neither prepared Vaughan for the scrutiny of an overseas Ashes tour.

We arrived in Perth and conducted a gentle fielding exercise at the Waca, which turned out to be very successful.

“The local newspaper positioned a camera. There is a good chance of one or two go down when the squad is 16 or 17 and you’re playing for an hour and a half.

The 2002-03 series was the last ‘ old-school ‘ England tour of Australia. England’s first game was on October 22 and its final game was more than three months later. The Ashes paused after three Tests for one-day internationals. Before the first Test, the visitors played four warm-up matches, with Vaughan’s impressive run of 100 against Queensland continuing. It did little to help him on the first morning of the first Test in Brisbane.

It was a terrible feeling, they said. Gut-wrenching, “he says”. Even though you’ve had Ashes series dreams and are desperate, excited, and desperate, I still had to say, “This is awful.”

“The pressure, the anthems. Leaving the Gabba and doing other similar things. I probably hid them nicely, put on a decent act that I was cool and calm, but I hated that first week”.

England were defeated by 384 runs in a Test that is remembered for captain Nasser Hussain’s notorious choice to field first. Simon Jones was carried off on a stretcher after a sickening knee injury and other plans fell at the first hurdle.

“We’d been talking about how we’re as one, and we go to the Aussies, and we go together,” says Vaughan.

“Andrew Caddick gave Matthew Hayden a few choice words early. Hayden dropped Caddick over his head for six and slammed him. Caddick went at him again and no-one else said a word”.

Without a trace of the upcoming glut of runs, Vaughan scored 33 and nothing. On the morning of the second Test in Adelaide, he was a severe doubt with a knee injury that would dog the rest of his career. Vaughan was still in the nets checking that Hussain was fit enough to play when he went to bat again, this time choosing to bat first.

He hobbled to 19, then came a sliding-doors moment. Justin Langer swung forward from point and took Andy Bichel’s drive to make it a wide one. Langer claimed what appeared to be a clean catch, but Vaughan was unmoved. While former Australia captain Mark Taylor began to become more agitated while sitting umpire Steve Bucknor called for TV umpire Steve Davis. Somehow, Vaughan got away with it.

Vaughan says, “He caught it, but I knew I had a chance.” “It was close to the ground. It always appeared to be touching one blade of grass on television, which is sufficient.

” The longer the review goes on, the more you think you’re getting away with it. Because I was anticipating what was happening, I laughed aloud. I knew I’d be absolutely lambasted. I was murdered by the Australians. All of them. Langer spent the entire day trying.

Vaughan made 177 – his first Ashes hundred and first against anyone outside of England. The Yorkshireman had his shoulder bone chipped by a Gillespie bouncer to go with a dodgy knee.

” All the Aussies came to shake my hand in the dressing room, apart from Justin, “says Vaughan.

Despite Vaughan’s effort, England were beaten by an innings, just as they were in the third Test in Perth, meaning the Ashes were lost on 1 December. The tour had only almost two months left.

England could have suffered another innings defeat in the Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, following on 281 behind, but Vaughan was at it again. His 145 gave Australia a 107-point goal. The home side were 58-3 and 83-4 before finally winning by five wickets.

According to Vaughan, “The MCG was being renovated.” I remember scoring a hundred, looking around to wave my bat and just saw a load of builders. I gave them a batwa.

“We could have won that game. We needed 60 or 70 more runs. Australia were jittery”.

England were improving, despite how odd it may seem for a team that is currently tied with 4-4.

“We were starting to play better cricket”, says Vaughan. It takes two or three games to realize you’re playing against people.

” You start by looking at them like they are robots or aliens – just too good. I recognized that they were good, but you had a chance if you did the fundamentals really well.

In Sydney, England were battling to avoid being humbled 5-0. After the first innings, Vaughan struck once more with just one run between the opposing teams. A sparkling 183 set Australia 452 to win and Caddick, with 10 wickets in the match, did the rest. Vaughan banked yet another Ashes lesson while England celebrated like they had won the Ashes, not a dead rubber.

” I remember sitting in the dressing room and thinking ‘,you’ve just got to do that three times to win the Ashes’, “he says”. No one spoke, but I believed there could be a team with good cricket.

“I wasn’t thinking as a leader at that time, but getting the captaincy later that year, I know I learned so much from that series”.

More beer was taken from Australia team post-series beers, which Hussain had discouraged while the Ashes were still in play.

Hussain was replaced as the Test captain by Vaughan six months later. His mission was to reshape an England team scarred by years of Ashes beatings. Only four of the Sydney XI made it to Lord’s for the first Ashes Test in 2005.

“It wasn’t two years of waking up and thinking, ‘ we’ve got to beat Australia’, because the only way to beat Australia is to win the games before”, says Vaughan. After having defeated the other teams, you can’t suddenly enter an Ashes to defeat that side.

” It became obvious we were going to have a fresher team, a younger team, a team that had very little baggage. When we lost the first Test in 2002-2003, it became understandable that many of those players had played for England in the 1990s. “Here we go again,” was what was very clear in that moment.

Those unforgettable eight weeks of summer in 2005 etched the names of Vaughan and his players into English cricketing folklore. Andrew Strauss’ catch and Steven Harmison’s blood drawn from Ponting. Kevin Pietersen’s hair and Gary Pratt’s direct hit. The batting of Andrew Flintoff. Andrew Flintoff’s bowling. Drinking by Andrew Flintoff.

Because of injuries that occurred even before the series ended, the class of 2005 never played together again.

The best part of winning is that it’s all over, says Vaughan, but it’s also quite deflating because it’s already over. All the stress and pressure were hard to deal with, but you get adrenaline from being in a series like that. You ponder what will happen after it is over.

Vaughan did not know it at the time, but lifting the urn was to be his last act as an Ashes cricketer. Due to his troublesome knees, he only participated in two more Tests in the 18 months that followed, including the 2006-2007 defence absence. Under the captaincy of Flintoff, and a shadow of the team that won in 2005, England were dismantled 5-0 by an Australia side determined for revenge.

We got absolutely hammered, and playing with me would have hammered, Vaughan remark. We poked the bear.

“It was difficult to watch because my friends were playing a lot. Once we beat that Australia team once, they weren’t going to allow us to beat them twice, especially in their own backyard”.

Vaughan abruptly left England in 2008, despite still having thoughts of playing in the Ashes in 2009 under Strauss’ captaincy. Form and knees didn’t allow it. Vaughan transitioned from a winning captain to a former cricketer in the four years that followed the Ashes series’ four years. He retired at the age of 34.

When Straussy called me to ask for runs in county cricket, he said he would look at me and we could have a look, but my body was knackered. “I couldn’t do the training or the work.

I once woke up one morning and said, “Come on, let’s try to get that batting slot.” I was thinking there was a chance.

“I probably retired a little too soon, but I would have been incredibly embarrassed in 2009,” I said.

Considering his lofty standing in recent English cricketing history, Vaughan played relatively few Ashes Tests – 10 of them, five away and five at home.