Two players, one big day

England's new opening pair have a presence when they take the field. Michael Vaughan and Robert Key are athletic six- footers. Vaughan is the slim one; Key, not as substantial as he used to be, fills a short-sleeved sweater.

But the differences are apparent from the start. Key struggles to find his touch. Two boundaries come off edges. This is his first Test. Vaughan bats like a veteran, stroking the ball to the boundary so that his score runs ahead of Key's. Their first stand is worth 56 runs. But Key is finding it hard.

When play ends, Vaughan says that this is the best innings he has ever played. Everything clicked from he start; he middled the ball, he found the gaps. "It was one of those days," he says. He has never known one like it. This was not just his highest score for England. It was his highest ever, anywhere. He thinks he has never hit the ball harder, in a Test at least.

He had only a single disappointment. He had batted for 356 minutes, taken more than half the balls England faced while he was in, and yet he missed his double hundred by three, playing a rash drive, rather like the one that got him to 100 at Lord's. He sat in the dressing room for a few minutes after he got back: "I was gutted I didn't make the double hundred," he says.

The question is whether he has moved on to a new stage in his Test career or whether this is part of a cycle of success and failure. He says frankly that he does not know the answer. He is bound to have a bad run, but he may be at a new stage. Like his cricket, his reactions seem instinctive. If you asked him how to play the smooth cover drive that runs so fast to the boundary that the fielders do not try to stop it, he might well say he hadn't a clue.

He looks like a batsman who could do well in Australia, but he refuses to contemplate that. "This summer's not finished with yet," he says. You would understand if he wanted it to last for ever. He has three Test centuries to his name already.

Key will remember the summer as clearly, but perhaps less fondly. It was a testing time for a debut. The ball had been swinging crazily when England bowled at the tail, but you cannot take wickets without a good line or good luck, and England had little of either. India's total rose fast, and 357 could have been a forbidding score if their pacemen bowled as well as they had done on the first morning at Lord's. But they did not and Key was allowed to do a job for one ball short of 17 overs. His score of 17 was not a memorable start, but he and Vaughan had launched the innings safely. Whether Key's Test career had also been launched is a different matter.

He reaches the wicket at midday. He holds his bat so low on the handle that he sinks into a crouch as he waits for the ball, his bottom prominent on the leg side. His pick-up is towards third slip, though the bat comes through straight. It is not a classical style, but it has been effective for Kent and the Academy.

The most striking first impression of Key at the crease is of an immense nonchalance. When he is not batting or prodding the pitch he stands still with his legs crossed and his left hand resting on his hip. He needs all the cool at his command after his fifth ball in Test cricket. The second ball of Zaheer Khan's first over swings sharply to the off and is taken by the tiny young keeper Parthiv Patel closer to second than first slip. The appeal is raucous and unanimous.

The only player who does not move is Key, who crosses his legs and looks as casual as he could. The other person who does not move is the umpire, Rudi Koertzen. Sourav Ganguly draws breath but says nothing. The TV replay shows that the ball has not touched Key's bat or glove. He has passed one test. There is nothing wrong with his composure.

Key deserved a chance. He did not quite take it, but he should savour his first match at Nottingham. Just in case he has to wait for a while when Trescothick returns.