Vaughan furthers cause of the occasional England bowler

Once those two early catches had gone down and India had made it clear there was not going to be an immediate collapse, it was likely to be a long, hot war of attrition for most of the fourth day here yesterday. England plugged away, the Indians went for their strokes, a trifle recklessly at times, and the temperatures zoomed into the low thirties. Phew!

The first breath of fresh air for England came from Simon Jones when he uprooted Virender Sehwag's off stump with his second ball. The next moment of triumph for Nasser Hussain's side came when the captain threw the ball to Michael Vaughan.

In his third over of occasional off-breaks, he persuaded Wasim Jaffer to play for turn which was not there and it was Hussain at slip who clutched the catch. The value of being able to call upon a part-timer was once again underlined, although in these days of highly trained specialist professionalism, part-timers seem almost a contradiction in terms.

England's cricket is full of part-time bowlers who have been able to turn their arms over and trap an unsuspecting batsman whose concentration has wavered. After the war, Denis Compton's chinamen and googlies fitted the bill. In the Sixties the role passed on to Ken Barrington with a little bit of help from Bob Barbar. Both had their moments bowling leg-breaks and googlies. Peter Parfitt's off breaks were sometimes used, Peter Willey was an occasional off-spinner and then Graham Gooch, when he was not so entertainingly copying the actions of the other bowlers of his time, winkled a few good players out with his seamers. And for a time Mike Atherton twirled the odd leg-break.

The job then fell for a while to Graeme Hick with his off-breaks and Mark Ramprakash has contributed an over or two of the same. In the present England side Hussain has two such options. Mark Butcher bowls at a slowish medium with the seam up and swings the ball, while Vaughan has his off-breaks.

Jaffer's wicket was Vaughan's first in Test cricket, while Butcher has taken 10, including 4 for 42 against Australia at Edgbaston. The value of an occasional bowler or two in the side is as great as ever and it is important that they should be given some practise by their counties. But this is a problem as Vaughan underlined in a recent interview. He is, of course, centrally contracted and makes inevitably limited appearances for his county, who have a full-time off-spinner in Bobby Dawson. As a result, Vaughan never gets an over for Yorkshire and his only hope of practise is in international matches, be they Tests or one-dayers.

This is sad and also slightly detrimental to England's cricket and is something else that central contracts have to answer for. The concept is excellent, of course, but the details still need to be fine tuned.