Vaughan finds silver lining; Lara pleased with plan
Guyana Chronicle
July 7, 2004

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MICHAEL Vaughan insisted England's one-day side showed promise despite missing the NatWest Series final.

It's a huge disappointment not to reach the final but there were a lot of positives to take out," he said.

"We didn't get the best of starts - the story of our competition - but some of the players did really well.

"In the first couple of games we just didn't play well enough and we were hammered but over the last few games we've come back and played decently."

After the seven-wicket defeat to West Indies at Lord's, Vaughan singled out Andrew Flintoff and Andrew Strauss for praise.

Their partnership of 226 was an England one-day record, for lifting the side from 77-3 at the halfway point to 285-7.

But man-of-the-match Chris Gayle, who shared a stand of 187 with Ramnaresh Sarwan, followed a similar plan.

Captain Brian Lara paid tribute to all four star batsmen but was pleased by his plan of packing the team with batsmen at the expense of front-line seamers.

"Flintoff and Strauss batted really well and got two brilliant hundreds and Chris Gayle and Ramnaresh Sarwan sealed it for us," he said.

"In the first 15 overs we didn't want to lose more than one wicket.

"We knew coming to the end we might have less balls than runs but as long as we had wickets in hand we would be able to catch up.” (BBC Sport)