Workaday seamers, front-foot clumpers: English cricket hasn't had much of areputation for style in the last 10 years. Michael Vaughan changed all that with a series of storming hundreds in 2002. His cover-drive, washed down with a follow-through to die for, was the signature shot of the year; his swivel-pulling was second only to Ricky Ponting's. It spoke volumes that Rahul Dravid approached Vaughan to talk technique against spinners. In many ways, Vaughan's style is more suited to a left-hander: the grace of Gower meets the urgency of Lara. His upright, angular appearance (he could have come straight from a 1940s Brylcreem ad) adds to the fusion of the classical and the contemporary. Vaughan goes about his work with an almost Gallic flair, but at a speed an American could love: chateaubriand as served by McDonald's. Vaughan was once compared to another Michael. Yet, whereas Atherton hit four sixes in his whole Test career, Vaughan has wellied 11 this year alone. Rob Smyth

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