Vaughan must master art of concentration

Michael Vaughan is becoming a worry. His two scores of more than a hundred in Test cricket are becoming increasingly and, surely, unnecessarily punctuated by high class and irrelevant little innings of anywhere between 25 and 50. It took him 16 innings to reach his first Test hundred and another 12 to reach his second.

In between, there have been fourteen scores between 25 and 50 and only four scores of over fifty. For such a talented batsman this is nothing short of ridiculous. It shows, beyond doubt, that there is a defect in his batting.

Similar defects have become the hallmark of the batting in recent years of Graeme Hick and Mark Ramprakash. They have both been players of the highest talent and the greatest technical know-how and yet they have both fallen foul of a defect which can only be mental.

Ramprakash would find ways of getting himself out when he had reached the twenties, while Hick simply never made the runs that his elegant and murderous form in county cricket insisted that he should. His sobriquet as a "flat track bully" was highly justified.

Ramprakash's nervous uncertainty and lack of self-belief was easier to see and yet those of us who watched his two Test hundreds, in Barbados in 1997-98 and last year at the Oval, hoped on both occasions that it would be the turning point. Alas, it was not.

Vaughan is the most upright and elegant of batsmen. His strokes are classically formed, his defence is excellent and he looks a real thoroughbred, yet he flatters to deceive. After his hundred in the First Test at Lord's, by kind permission of two extraordinary missed slip catches by Sir Lanka's captain, Sanath Jayasuriya, one felt that this was the removal of the final stutter.

In the Second Test at Edgbaston, he moved to an impeccable 46 and his second successive Test hundred already seemed a certainty, but then he swept loosely at Muttiah Muralitheran and Jayasuriya took the catch at short fine leg.

Yesterday he began at Old Trafford with a flourish as he punished Eric Upashantha for placing six men on the offside and for bowling half-volleys at the leg stump. When Muralitheran came on, a half-volley was whipped from off stump to wide mid-on for four, a full toss was straight driven for another and then a half-volley was driven through extra cover for three.

Another hundred was positively waving him on. Then, he faced Dilhara Fernando, another fortunate beneficiary of the pre-match injuries to Nuwan Zoysa and Buddika Fernando. He produced a slower ball and Vaughan was drawn early into the drive, giving the simplest of catches to mid off.

A serious candidate to succeed Nasser Hussain when the time comes, he must come to terms with this or that moment may never come. Some batsmen, like John Edrich and Geoffrey Boycott, learn to concentrate before they first pick up a bat. The longer time goes by, the harder it becomes to learn this art. Vaughan must grit his teeth and get stuck in.