Re: England without Vaughan, Good or Bad?
I personally really dont care about english media whinning or not if Vaughan does miss the series. Many teams miss key players and they just have to learn to deal with it. India missed the services of Sahin Tendulkar due to tenniss elbow for a while, Shane Bond was missed by the Kiwis, Pakistan have regularly missed fit fast bowlers but as a professional outfit you have to take these things in your stride and try to make the best oout of the situation.
Vaughan is a lot more important to England as a cpatain then as a batsman. But he still is also a key batsman. English batting reserves, despite having a very good domestic circuit is surprisingly thin. I recently read, despite his sluggish form the reality is Ian Bell is one of the best batsmen in county cricket. Those county batsman need ot realize playing agaisnt world class bowler in a first class match is a lot different then in an international game. Vaughan's injury is a double blow to the English team but then again one cant blame us for having bad kness. Best of luck to him, although I am pretty sure he wont play the first test but maybe he will be fit for the rest of the two.
The importance of Vaughan can be judged by the fact that Jeffrey Boycott have said that if Vaughan does not play the whole series he would rate Pakistan as favorites to take the series 1-0.