Copyright bbc
The 2002-03 series was the last 'old-school' England tour of Australia. England played their first game on 22 October and their last more than three months later. The Ashes paused after three Tests for one-day internationals. The tourists played four warm-up matches before the first Test, with Vaughan's good form continuing with a century against Queensland. It did little to help him on the first morning of the first Test in Brisbane. "It was a horrible feeling. Gut-wrenching," he says. "As much as you're desperate, excited and you've had the dreams of playing in an Ashes series, when it came I just thought, 'this is awful'. "The pressure, the anthems. Walking out to sing at the Gabba - little things like that. I probably hid them nicely, put on a decent act that I was cool and calm, but I hated that first week." In a Test remembered for captain Nasser Hussain's infamous decision to field first, England were flattened by 384 runs. Simon Jones was carried off on a stretcher after a sickening knee injury and other plans fell at the first hurdle. "We'd had the talk about 'we're as one, when we go to the Aussies, we go together'," says Vaughan. "Andrew Caddick gave Matthew Hayden a few choice words early. Hayden drop-kicked Caddick over his head for six. Caddick went at him again and no-one else said a word." Vaughan made scores of 33 and nought, with no real hint of the glut of runs to come. On the morning of the second Test in Adelaide, he was a severe doubt with a knee injury that would dog the rest of his career. When Hussain went to toss up, this time choosing to bat first, Vaughan was still in the nets making sure he was fit enough to play. He hobbled to 19, then came a sliding-doors moment. A drive at a wide one from Andy Bichel was taken by Justin Langer diving forward from point. Langer claimed what appeared to be a clean catch, but Vaughan was unmoved. Standing umpire Steve Bucknor called for TV umpire Steve Davis, all while former Australia captain Mark Taylor - commentating on television - became gradually more agitated. Somehow, Vaughan got away with it. "He caught it, but I knew I had a chance," says Vaughan. "It was close to the ground. On TV it was always going to look like it touched one blade of grass and that's enough. "The longer the review goes on, the more you think you're getting away with it. I was laughing to myself, because I knew what was coming. I knew I'd be absolutely lambasted. The Australians murdered me. All of them. Langer took it all day." Vaughan made 177 - his first Ashes hundred and first against anyone outside of England. To go with a dodgy knee, the Yorkshireman had his shoulder bone chipped by a Gillespie bouncer. "All the Aussies came to shake my hand in the dressing room, apart from Justin," says Vaughan. "The confidence of scoring a hundred against Australia in Australia, it doesn't get much better. Of all the hundreds I got in my career, that was the most special."
