Vaughan enjoys his run feast

But going into this game, Vaughan was the most undercooked of all the England players.

While his batting pals were suffering a collectively inauspicious start to the season, England's captain was given an extended rest by coach Duncan Fletcher ahead of what is expected to be a very exhausting summer.

His three first-class innings for Yorkshire had produced 74 runs, to which he had added a couple of one-day fifties.

When England reconvened this week, Vaughan immediately announced that he would be returning to bat at three as he seeks to challenge Alec Stewart for the frequency with which he chops and changes batting position.

The cynical might say he subtly used his power as captain to promote himself up the order. At least, against Bangladesh, he knows he is going to get a good bat at number three.

When he came in to bat yesterday evening at 148 for one, Vaughan had the perfect platform in which to put down a few markers for the more serious business against you know who. He began rustily and could easily have been out on a couple of occasions, the most notable when he was on eight and Mohammad Rafique dropped an easy caught and bowled chance.

Resuming on 22 today, he looked in excellent touch. Against the tourists' best two bowlers, Rafique and the hostile Mashrafe Mortaza, his feet moved quickly and he displayed the trademark elegance which makes him one of world cricket's most watchable players when on song.

The pull shot off Mortaza which took him to 30 was classic Vaughan. Head still, quickly into position and the ball dispatched with the speed of a tracer bullet to the midwicket boundary.

Then there were the dreamy back-foot cover drives, subtle leg glances and some powerful square cuts.

The opposition are far too mediocre to talk of 'golden age' batting but this was still superb entertainment.

The noisy crowd, bolstered by the 5,000 schoolchildren who had been bussed in and made the famous old ground sound like a particularly vociferous playground, seemed satisfied by the sight of England's big guns recalibrating their sights ahead of the summer's main battle.

Vaughan's form has been uneven, and his average has plummeted, since he took the captaincy nearly two years ago.

Yet he never actually appears to be out of form. The ball still pings off the middle of the bat and the technique looks sure unlike, say, that of Trescothick.

You sometimes get the feeling that the England captain plays too many shots as he looks to rediscover the form with the bat of his amazing purple patch of the last Ashes series.

Australia will be in the back of Vaughan's mind before the next Lord's Test - on 21 July - but Test match runs against the first tourists of the summer can only help his confidence.