As the flashbulbs light up his face, a tear runs down his cheek. In front of the world’s media, Michael Vaughan announces he is stepping down as England captain.
It could never have been easy for Vaughan to quit the job he loved, but as his voice cracked at that famous press conference, a sense of pride in his achievements flooded out like the tears from his eyes.
“I know how proud my mum and dad have been” he said.
“I spoke to my dad this morning and he said ‘you know can walk away a proud lad because you’ve given it everything’ and that’s all he ever asked me to do.”
Now 18 months on from that tearful press conference at Edgbaston, Vaughan says its time to look back on the ups and down of his career with his new autobiography Time to Declare.
“This book is an open and honest assessment of my career and tells exactly how I saw things over the last 18 years” he said.
“It’s nice to be able to sign off at the end of your career and I’ve tried to give a true reflection of the people I’ve played with.
“I want people to read the book and be able to see what it’s like to be the England cricket captain.”
Vaughan says that the move to stand down as captain was “the biggest decision of his life”, and is something he still thinks about today.
He said: “I didn’t really want to pass on the captaincy, but I knew that it was the right time to move on. In the book I say it’s still the best job in the world and I still believe that.
“Any time that Strauss goes through a dodgy moment and rings me for some advice, I do explain to him that he’s got a great position and you have to learn to deal with the stressful times.
“If you asked me today to go back, I’d jump at the chance, but sadly my knee wouldn’t be quite as up for it.
“Going into the press conference after I resigned, I just wanted to be myself. If you end up crying on TV because you’re passionate about a job that you did, then it clearly shows how much it means to you.”
“The last few months as captain were not a nice time but the five years prior to that were great.
“I’d say 85 per cent of my career was unbelievable. Everybody has to go through tough moments and I came through most of those. I have no regrets.
“I have no bitter pill about anybody or anything and I can move on to a new stage of my career with peace of mind.”
Vaughan is England’s most successful captain ever, having won 26 of his 51 test matches skippering the team. However, he believes personal records mean nothing in the game, and insists his biggest achievement was increasing interest in cricket.
“Records are there to be beaten, and I think my record as captain will be overtaken by Andrew Strauss” he said.
“I don’t look at individual records; I look at what else I achieved. The questions I ask myself is did I bring a new dimension to cricket? Did I bring a new audience and capture the nation with the team that I captained? And did I entertain a lot of people?
“I’m proud to say the answer to all those questions is yes.”
Vaughan was originally born in Manchester but moved to Sheffield aged eight where he began playing for the Collegiate Club at Abbeydale Park.
He later returned to Abbeydale while playing for Yorkshire in the 1990’s, and now has a junior cricket academy named in his honour at the Dore club.
However, Yorkshire have not used Abbeydale for a county fixture since 1996, and Vaughan says he would love to see first class cricket return to Sheffield.
“I’d love to see county cricket back at Abbeydale, but it’s hard for Yorkshire to bring a county game down here with what’s happening at Headingley.
“I used to love playing at the smaller grounds across the county and the atmosphere that we used to create. But I understand that the logistics are very difficult to bring it down here now, which is a great shame for everyone.”
Having hung up his boots, Vaughan is now eyeing a career in sports broadcasting, and is currently following England’s tour of South Africa for BBC Radio. And he feels England can have a fruitful winter against the best test side in the world.
He said: “I think they’ve got a chance of doing well in South Africa. I think the team are developing well and we’ll know more about them in two or three months.
“Beating Australia here was great, but we’re not too sure how good Australia are at the moment. South Africa are a good team and if we compete and win then we’re onto something good but if we get beat heavily then it’s back to square one.”