Vaughan turns down chance of time in the middle

Despite his own poor performance with the bat during the Lord's Test, Michael Vaughan has turned down the chance of a rare outing for Yorkshire in the latest round of Championship matches, preferring to work in the nets with Duncan Fletcher.

Despite not having played a substantial innings for two months, Vaughan declined the chance to join the Yorkshire side for their match against Derbyshire at Headingley.

"I've been looking at my form and my dismissals," a defiant Vaughan told the Daily Telegraph. "In the first innings I don't think I could have done too much about that ball. I really don't doubt that I'm a good player and just because I got 3 and 4 against players like McGrath, Lee and Warne doesn't tend to worry me too much. You just have to make sure that you come up mentally strong and I believe I'm pretty good at that."

Despite England's poor performances with the bat - Kevin Pietersen excepted - few of the side will do much before the second Test which starts next week. Andrew Flintoff and Marcus Trescothick will play in this weekend's Twenty20 finals at The Oval, while Geraint Jones, Ashley Giles, Ian Bell, Matthew Hoggard, Pietersen and Vaughan will play in National League games. Simon Jones, Andrew Strauss and Steve Harmison will not take the field at all before Edgbaston.

Former England opener Geoff Boycott was unimpressed with the take-it-easy approach. "Those players who haven't made runs would be better of playing county cricket to get runs in the middle," he told the BBC. "You want runs behind your name as that breeds confidence."