Over to the Andymen

Michael Vaughan today formally acknowledged that he was to retire, because younger players needed room to develop and because he had not been playing well enough to get back into the England Ashes side.

"Playing cricket has been my life for 18 years and now is the time to move on," he said but that is only part of the story. He told how he was recently bowled in his garden by his son. "When a three-year-old bowls you it is time to quit," he said, laughing at his own myth-making.

Vaughan had begun his press conference as if he might find the announcement stressful but, as you can see from that remark, he soon relaxed.

I have a sympathy with his mood because it is less than a year since I woke one morning and decided I wanted no more of travelling round the world, reporting cricket round the year and, 40 years older than Vaughan, worrying that my health might one day make me a press box liability rather than a colleague.

If he follows the path I have trodden he will miss the companionship, the gossip and the "shop" but that mood fades and I trust he will come to understand that he has chosen the right course.

A new era has begun but it did not have to be so drastic. Look at the 2005 Ashes victory and ask yourself why the men who played a big part in that victory are no longer around.

Vaughan, of course, Marcus Trescothick, Matthew Hoggard, Steve Harmison; all victims of an management team who never succeeded in finding a strategy that would keep a winning side.

They even have to take the blame for the absence of Simon Jones, injured in the first Test in Brisbane when the Australians were told not to slide on that outfield; and of Chris Read, a wicket-keeper of the highest quality who could not score the runs they demanded.

Now the responsibility for strategy, planning, selection and progress falls on the inexperienced shoulders of Andy Flower, the new coach, Kevin Pietersen, who single-mindedly is more likely to be thinking about himself, the new captain Andrew Strauss and Andrew Flintoff, who sometimes has other issues - injuries and a glass or two - on his mind.

The three Andymen had better be in tune for, from Ravi Bopara at No.3 to Adil Rashid as the second all-rounder, there are too many players in the side who would be better if Vaughan had been able to stay around for one final summer.