CRICKET:Michael Vaughan may just have played the innings of his life. Returned to the England Test side after an absence of 18 months, cloaked in controversy but with an unwavering singular belief in his own ability and right to resume his place at the top table, he made a century of such technical excellence and upright elegance that the agonising months on the sidelines might have been airbrushed away as if they never happened.
When, midway through the afternoon, with Vaughan beyond his half-century, a Lancaster bomber flew magnificently low over the ground and dipped its wings in salute, nostalgia quite literally was in the air.
So, as he edged Jerome Taylor through the slips and to the third-man boundary to bring up three figures, and bring the capacity crowd to its feet, there was a resonance that went back almost 30 years to this same ground when Geoffrey Boycott, also at his home venue, drove Greg Chappell's away-swinger through mid on to register his 100th hundred.
The England captain, not unnaturally, could scarcely restrain his delight, leaping, punching the air and then finding himself lifted from his feet by Kevin Pietersen, a fellow embarked on another belligerent century of his own.
If Vaughan's entrance had been greeted with polite enthusiasm from the terraces rather than rapture, then by the end the reception had transformed into genuine emotion.
This was an innings that Vaughan will have played over and over in his mind a thousand times and more as he pounded out the rehabilitating miles on his exercise bike.
But it takes a fierce competitor to be able to translate desire into action.
It was a masterpiece, overshadowing in its execution another stirring hundred from Pietersen, his eighth in 25 Tests, scored virtually at a run a ball, which helped send England at a gallop to 366 for five, a dominant position on a pristine easy-paced surface under summer skies.
Few innings of substance are faultless but until his concentration failed him on completion of his century Vaughan came as close to perfection as ever he can have done.
If there was an element of destiny about Vaughan, then Pietersen carries the air of inevitability with him these days.
Again, though, West Indies wasted a chance. When he had only 20 he advanced down the pitch to Gayle's off spin, missed and was stumped by a distance, only for Asad Rauf to call no-ball. So Pietersen survived for an unbeaten 130.
Gayle had already collected the wicket of Alastair Cook for 42, with the last ball of the morning session, a mirror image of the lbw decisions conceded to Monty Panesar at Lord's by Rauf. West Indies might bemoan their luck but sometimes you make your own. Ask Vaughan.
Guardian Service
England v West Indies
at Headingley
England: First Innings
A J Strauss c Ramdin b D B L Powell 15
A N Cook lbw b Gayle 42
M P Vaughan c Morton b Taylor 103
K P Pietersen not out 130
P D Collingwood c Gayle b Collymore 29
I R Bell c Ramdin b Collymore 5
M J Prior not out 13
Extras b1 lb14 w8 nb6 29
Total 5 wkts (85 overs) 366
Fall: 1-38, 2-91, 3-254, 4-316, 5-329.
To Bat: L E Plunkett, R J Sidebottom, S J Harmison, M S Panesar.
Bowling: D B L Powell 21-4-96-1; Collymore 21-1-80-2; Taylor 16-4-79-1; Bravo 18-2-61-0; Gayle 9-1-35-1.
