FORMER England cricket captain Michael Vaughan will always occupy a special place in my sporting memories. Having been at the Ashes Test at Edgbaston in 2005 when he caught opposite number Ricky Ponting off the bowling of Ashley Giles, I then hoped that it was a defining moment.

In an era of celebrity, Vaughan has produced something that is an alltoo rare commodity: a sporting autobiography worth reading.

Thankfully he doesn’t dwell too long on the Ashes celebrations when the players drank in, literally, the adulation of a nation.

Vaughan talks openly of his warm friendship with Duncan Fletcher and his forced relationship with the coach’s successor Peter Moores. He is also frank about his strained relationship with the England and Wales Cricket Board.

But most revealingly of all, he lays bare the self-doubt which racked him towards the end of his injuryravaged career as a professional cricketer, England Test captain and Ashes hero.

Anthony Looch