20 Facts about Michael Vaughan - One of England's finest captains

20 Facts about Michael Vaughan – One of England’s finest captains: Michael Vaughan was a calm and headstrong leader who re-defined English cricket. His priceless captaincy ability turned England into a dominant force in Test cricket.

A technically sound batsman and an occasional off-spinner, Vaughan’s career spanned for just around nine years. But, his achievements are still highly spoken of. He treated success and failure with equal measure and loved to express his views without any hesitation. His career was full of challenges which he faced it genuinely to establish a respectful status in the history of England cricket.

1. Birth:

Michael Vaughan was born on October 29, 1974 at Salford, Manchester.

2. Family:

Vaughan lives with his wife Nichola whom he married on 27 September 2003. Together, they have three children, Tallula Grace (born June 2004), Archie Matthew (born December 2005), and Jemima (born May 2010) in Baslow, Derbyshire.

3. A football player first:

Michael Vaughan played soccer at Silverdale School at a young age before focusing his attention to cricket.

4. Surprising start:

Vaughan, who was then living in Derbyshire, turned up to watch Yorkshire during Sheffield game. During the tea break, he was playing in the outfield with his friends when Yorkshire head coach Doug Padgett spotted him, and approached him about joining the County. However, Vaughan was born in Eccles, near Manchester, and at the time Yorkshire had a strict policy of only picking players who were born in Yorkshire.

5. Early career:

Vaughan began playing professional cricket aged 17 and captained England Under-19 cricket team on tour against Sri Lanka in 1993/94.

6. International debut:

Vaughan made his debut playing against South Africa at Johannesburg 1999. Two years later, he made his debut in the coloured jersey against Sri Lanka at Dambulla in 2001.

7. Tough debut:

Vaughan faced up to his first ball in Test cricket with England four wickets down for two runs at Johannesburg in November 1999. He made 33 in that innings.

8. Maiden Test century:

In May 2001, he scored his first Test century against Pakistan at Old Trafford.

7. No three-figure mark in ODIs:

Vaughan has not hit an ODI century in his career.  His highest ODI score is 90 not out, which he made off 99 balls against Zimbabwe.

8. Dominance in the year 2002:

In total, he scored 1,481 Test runs in 2002, at the time the second-highest for a calendar year in Test history after Viv Richards’ 1,710 in 1976, although as of 2010 Vaughan’s total has been exceeded another five times. He sparkled his way to 900 runs in seven Tests against Sri Lanka and India in 2002. He also had a very successful tour to Australia later. This run of form made Vaughan the number one batsman in the world according to the ICC rankings, the first Englishman to achieve this since Graham Gooch.

9. Wisden Cricketer of the year:

Vaughan was chosen as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 2003 and became the first cricketer ever to be featured on the cover of the 140th edition of cricket’s Bible Wisden (in the same year) after his excellent batting in 2002.

10. Unique feat:

In the year 2002, he became the first visiting batsman in 32 years to score over 600 runs in a Test series in Australia. Also, he was the first Englishman to score 3 Test hundreds in a series against Australia since Chris Broad.

11. Captaincy record for England:

Vaughan captained England in 51 Tests between 2003 and 2008, winning 26 (a national record) and losing 11.

12. Ashes triumph:

He was the captain of the England team when they regained the Ashes in 2005, eighteen years after having last won the trophy. The last English captain to do so was Mike Gatting in 1986-87.

13. Rough phase:

Vaughan missed almost the entire 2006 season due to injury to his knee; he was unable to play Test series against India and Sri Lanka.

14. Retirement: 

On 30 June 2009, Vaughan announced his retirement from all forms of cricket following troubles with injuries and selection problems.

15. Life after retirement:

Michael Vaughan became an expert summariser and a commentator. On 21 June 2012, Vaughan was the first celebrity to be revealed in the line-up of the tenth series of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’.

16. Special honour:

He carried the Olympic torch for the 2012 Summer Olympics.

17. Dream House:

In 2006, Vaughan bought a house valued at £1million on a luxury golf course development in Barbados and another on Isla Margarita.

18. Doctorate:

In August 2005, the Sheffield Hallam University honoured him with an honorary doctorate for his services towards the game.

19. Queens’s honour:

Vaughan, team Coach Duncan Fletcher and manager Phil Neale were honoured with Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE).

20. Book:

Michael Vaughan has written three books related to his cricketing career: A Year in the Sun: The Captain’s Story, Calling The Shots and Time to Declare