Michael Vaughan's Blog, page 4

My advice to Tom Westley: keep your head up and ditch the drive

W e are going to learn a lot about Tom Westley over the next five days . He is playing at Lord���s with his place in the England team on the line.

Joe Root was right to declare England's second innings at Headingley - but he must be far more ruthless

J oe Root will have had a sleepless night after England���s defeat . As captain you toss and turn mulling over every decision. You beat yourself up, that is the nature of captaincy and why it is a tough job.

Disciplining Ben Stokes for swearing at himself makes me want to curse

D uring the 1980s and 1990s there would have been a lot of great players who would have missed a heap of Test matches for swearing if the same rules existed that landed Ben Stokes in trouble during this Test match .

We have to help save the West Indies - two Test cricket divisions is the place to start

T est cricket desperately needs two divisions and this series against West Indies is proving that change has to happen now.

England's first day-night Test match is long overdue ��� cricket needs to embrace change to save long-form game from extinction

W hile the rise of Twenty20 cricket has created a new buzz around the game, for the most part Test cricket has sat on its backside and done nothing. It is the one format that has not really changed , and therefore the one format in decline. This is why...

England's future is in safe hands under Joe Root ��� the Test captain is aggressive, is growing in confidence and has tactical nous

W hen Joe Root was appointed England���s Test captain there were questions over whether he would be tactically smart enough. For me, that was never in doubt and against South Africa he showed enough tactical intelligence to ease any worries about that side of his game.

Four things England must do to close out a series win

Embrace 'boring' cricket

Too aggressive at Trent Bridge, England batted with welcome patience at the Oval

E ngland were criticised after Trent Bridge and I was probably the most vocal because I thought they underachieved and did not respect the requirements of Test match batting.

The Oval is where we won the 2005 Ashes - to me it's a very special place

T he whole 2005 summer was special and the atmosphere was amazing at all the grounds but there was an air about the Oval that was different.

England are not good enough to think that attack is always the best policy

E ngland have to decide very quickly what type of Test match team they want to be. They also have to be honest with themselves and admit they have a problem chasing games. As soon as the opposition bats and makes more than 350, England consistently go out and play...