WHAT a marvellous month or so it has been for Michael Vaughan who has found the best batting form of his career during June and has today been given the job of leading Yorkshire in the three-day match against Cambridge University at Headingley.

David Byas seems completely secure in his role as Yorkshire captain and the 34-year-old left-hander will no doubt stay in charge until the time comes when he decides to retire from cricket and spend all his time on the family farm again.

He is likely to have a big say, however, in choosing his successor, and it could be quite significant that while he takes a rest this weekend, it is Vaughan who has been given the honour of captaining the side rather than Darren Gough.

Byas is a fiercely loyal and competitive Yorkshireman and would like more than anything else to be remembered as the captain responsible for bringing about a return to the glory days.

Unless things go badly awry and he becomes disillusioned and decides to quit, then the captaincy would seem to be his for another three or four seasons yet.

That would take Vaughan up to 26 or 27 years of age when he should be at the height of his career and with plenty of valuable experience after eight or nine years in the first class game.

Gough by then would be around the 30 mark and regardless of whether or not he may have as good a cricketing brain as Vaughan, is he as a fast bowler likely to be staying as fit as an opening batsman in his prime?

Of all the younger players on Yorkshire's books, Vaughan seems the most capable of knowing what he needs to do to take him to the top and it is this realisation which has brought him an outstanding run of scores recently.

He knows that if he is to realise his ambition of getting picked for England he has to make runs regularly and steadily, cutting out the risky early shots and making sure he stays at the crease for as long as possible.

He did this to perfection in the first innings against Durham at Riverside when his 177 was ideally suited to the occasion and the sort of knock Yorkshire have rarely seen from an opener since Geoff Boycott was around.

It was responsible for swinging the game Yorkshire's way in remarkably rapid fashion because Durham simply lost heart once they had seen their first innings lead whittled away and the only pity was that Vaughan was last out and not Matthew Hoggard which denied Vaughan the distinction of becoming the first Yorkshire batsman to carry his bat since Boycott at Sheffield in 1985.

It was also slightly disappointing that Vaughan was unbeaten on 36 in the second innings when a half century would have extended his sequence of scores of 50 or more to six.

Another half-century in the match against Kent at Maidstone next week would then have taken his run to seven consecutive half-centuries, something which only Len Hutton (twice) and Boycott have managed among Yorkshire batsmen.

Vaughan's scores in his five innings sequence were 69 and 59 v Oxford University, 77 v Leicestershire, 86 v Hampshire and 177 v Durham.

Boycott's seven on the trot in 1982 was comprised of 91 and 82 v Nottinghamshire, 52 and 122 not out v Sussex, 62 v Lancashire, 129 v Somerset and 69 v Kent.

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