Tim de Lisle: Vaughan ready to step into Hussain's Test shoes... but not just yet

Last year, after a lengthy apprenticeship, Michael Vaughan suddenly grew into one of the world's best and most entertaining batsmen. This year, with no time for an apprenticeship, he has suddenly grown into an accomplished international captain.

Not too much should be read into the two series victories with which Vaughan's reign has begun - Pakistan sent a virtual second XI, Zimbabwe were weak even by their pedestrian standards, and South Africa rediscovered their old ability to choke on the big occasion.

Nor need any notice be taken of the news that England are now ranked third in the ICC One-Day Championship: the fact that they would have fallen to eighth had they lost last Saturday confirms that the ICC has yet to hit on a system that can be taken seriously.

It's more a matter of Vaughan's own performance. Both his demeanour and his decision-making have been highly impressive.

The captaincy has brought out another side to an already multi-faceted character. In his first nine games in charge, Vaughan wasn't over-cautious, as he was with the bat in his early Tests; he wasn't overheated, as he has sometimes been since; he didn't lose concentration and make careless mistakes, as he is inclined to when the only thing he is required to do is stand at gully.

When things went awry, he didn't brood as Nasser Hussain and Mike Atherton have done at times when captaining England, nor switch to autopilot as Alec Stewart and Graham Gooch were apt to do. He wasn't desperate to impose himself, as new bosses can be. He exuded composure and authority without becoming stiff or distant.

Hussain's approach to teamwork has always been much like that of Michael Caine in The Italian Job: "We need to work as a team. That means doing as I say at all times." There is a place for enlightened autocracy in sport - neither Ian Chappell nor Douglas Jardine was famous for putting decisions to the vote - and it was the sort of medicine England needed when Hussain took over in 1999.

But Vaughan has instantly taken a different route. He has been visibly more democratic, holding conferences with everyone from the young players to Marcus Trescothick (the faithful lieutenant who responded to being passed over with genial professionalism), Darren Gough (not just the oldest swinger in town, but the most boyish elder statesman) and Ashley Giles, who was so heartened that he even agreed to bowl round the wicket.

Vaughan helped his team, in the field if not always at the crease, to be more than the sum of their parts, which made the selectors look better than they strictly deserved: even when he was short of runs, he deployed himself to patch up the gaping hole that had been left in the middle order. Not every captain would have been so unselfish.

He displayed the magic touch with his bowling changes, which is an advantage comparable to having a bowler with a golden arm, only more so, since bowling changes can happen as often as you like. And he had the nerve and the wit to attack opposing batsmen, showing a willingness to post slip catchers in mid-innings which, had it been shared by the last few one-day captains, might have got England through to a World Cup Super Six or two.

The most impressive thing was that he seemed to master one-day cricket as a captain before he had done so as a batsman. His batting remained fragile and fitful until the last two games. When quizzed about it, he put it down to luck, saying he was nicking balls that he had been playing and missing at during his purple patch. But there were days when he had clear slices of fortune, with dropped catches or lbws (enjoying the captain's time-dishonoured right to be given the benefit of very little doubt), and still couldn't capitalise, because he hadn't found the rhythm of one-day cricket. That changed on 8 July, under the lights at Edgbaston, when Vaughan made 83 and recaptured the dreamy excellence of last year's Test hundreds.

The bigger test for Vaughan will come in the winter, in Sri Lanka and the West Indies, where the white ball won't swing or seam so obligingly. But his fine start has one clear ramification. The question of who succeeds Hussain is no longer an issue: Vaughan is installed as the heir apparent. Barring accidents, the question is not who but when.

The answer should be: not yet. Hussain will return next week refreshed. This is an increasingly rare state for a leading cricketer to find himself in, and a vital one for Nasser, whose intensity tends to leave him exhausted by the end of a series. After a break from the big stage and a spate of runs for Essex, he will be raring to run rings round Graeme Smith, whose every statement suggests he would have been a sound choice for the South African captaincy after the World Cup - in 2007.

England are in the happy position of having two good captains. Australia have shown, first with Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh, now with Waugh and Ricky Ponting, how a team can gain from having two masters and a measured succession. In terms of captaincy, England are now the Aussies' equal. Just batting, bowling and fielding to go then.

Tim de Lisle is editor of Wisden 2003

timdelisle62@hotmail.com