'I just put my head down and ran and I kept on running'
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Your support makes all the difference.At least Michael Vaughan had the decency to own up to it. "In the first innings I felt I had let the team down," said the Yorkshire opener, behind the protective padding of a second innings century. "There was a man out there on the hook." But he still played the shot.
Yesterday though was different. Vaughan had made up his mind to play every shot but the hook, or at least, he was more prudent in his use of it. "I tried to be a bit more choosy this time around. I didn't not play the shot, but I was a little more careful today."
Considering that he had arrived at Lord's with a mere two first-class innings under his belt this term, one in double figures, one not, his application and achievement were all the more commendable.
His patience was especially virtuous and his caution particularly prudent, and it would appear that the 90s were more nerve-racking for the onlookers than for the man himself. Although when he was a tantalising one run away from this the second Test century of his career it did get a trifle edgy. "I spent 10 or 15 balls on 99. They were using delaying tactics, changing the field around, trying to bowl outside off-stump," admitted Vaughan.
"When I hit the ball to mid-off I just put my head down and, ran and I kept on running. It was a fantastic feeling." He saluted the crowd, the England balcony and anyone else who might have been watching. And since the fact that it was not a chanceless innings coaxed another admission from Vaughan. "You need a bit of luck and I was dropped twice, and thankfully I was able to make the most of it."
Vaughan's eventual dismissal came at 115, caught off the bowling of the controversial Sri Lanka left-arm seamer Ruchira Perera, who was pilloried by television and radio pundits for having a suspect action. But in the absence of a report from the umpires, Daryl Harper and Srinivas Venkataraghavan, to the referee, Gundappa Viswanath – and last night the International Cricket Council insisted that no paperwork had been passed to anyone, nor indeed had there been any viewing of video footage of Perera's action – the bowler remains innocent, and for the time being a legitimate danger to England's batsmen.
And the news does not get any better for the home side because, after a late arrival from Sri Lanka on Saturday night, the off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan was at Lord's and according to friends of his he cannot wait to get into action. He is apparently hoping to be fit for the second Test at Edgbaston in two weeks' time and is promising to be ready for the third and final round of this rubber on familiar territory at Old Trafford, where he spent two successful seasons in 1999 and 2001.
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