The building industry has been hit harder than most by the recession, but it could have been a lot worse without Sky TV’s cricket commentary boxes. The old ones used to be just about big enough to house Fred Trueman and his pipe. Nowadays the number of annexes and extensions being knocked up to accommodate former England captains would make the Wembley stadium project look like a semi on a Barratt estate.

Michael Vaughan might shortly join the club, which would be a welcome addition. Cricket has, as we all know, been hugely enriched by the proliferation of newspaper columns by players, offering fascinating insights into who’s just bought a new iPod or what they had for breakfast yesterday, but when you have the word “former” on your cricketer CV you can finally say something worth saying.

Like most batsmen, Vaughan rarely left the dressing room without a personal pep talk — “c’mon now, play straight, don’t risk any rash shots” — but this had nothing to do with preparing to face McGrath or Muralitharan. It was, when he was captain, a reminder not to spill any beans at the press conference.

Now he’s retired, however, Vaughan can speak his mind. If his new book is anything to go by, he will be both articulate and thought-provoking. He has, he says, “a lot of fingers in a lot of pies”, and is taking his time before deciding which route to take. “I enjoy giving my opinion on the game,” he says, “and now I’m no longer playing I can actually say it how I feel it. So yes, the media is one of those possibilities.”

One of the things that most concerns Vaughan is how to get to grips with an England side who perform like a malfunctioning cuckoo clock — popping out roughly every four years to stick it to the Aussies, but otherwise falling off its perch with barely a croak when trying to build a team capable of winning all over the world, over a few years, in all forms of the game.

“Unlike Australia, we’ve never had a winning team over an era,” says Vaughan. “The Ashes is something of an obsession, and it’s hard not for it to be when you see what goes on when it’s in England. It’s just phenomenal. But are we happy just to beat the Aussies occasionally or do we want to be the best in the world over a long period? Because if we do, our game needs to change. When we succeed, we do so despite the system, not because of it.”

One of Vaughan’s current roles is with the ECB, working with promising teenagers to try to change attitudes as well as skills. “There’s obviously too much cricket being played,” he says, “but there is a cultural problem in English cricket as well.” By which he means players are too soft.

“These lads [I’m working with] are 16 to 18-year-olds and the accent is all about mental toughness. We’ve got this SAS guy, Floyd Woodrow, working with them, and the training he puts them through is like nothing I’ve ever seen. It’s a 44-day operation — I joined in for four of them and was totally knackered — and they’re up at 6am, not finishing till 9pm. It’s all highly pressurised and designed to test character.

“I played in an era where the best players have been able to get away with things and dictate terms but on this course you learn that it doesn’t matter who you are, if you don’t do it, you’re out. These are 16-year-old kids facing 85mph bouncers from a bowling machine, finding out how to cope. The plan is to send them back to their counties with the kind of mindset geared towards producing a new generation of tough cricketers, mentally and physically, which would be great for our game.”

Vaughan doesn’t appear to be a huge fan of Ray Illingworth, judging by the passage in the book describing him as a curmudgeon bearing “a grudge against anyone who doesn’t come from Pudsey”, but the one opinion they share is that league cricket, especially up north, is a better breeding ground for toughening up a player than county cricket.

Vaughan learnt a lot from the leagues and even more from the Australian equivalent, grade cricket. “When I first witnessed the Aussie system, how their Test players would regularly go off to train with their club guys, I thought, ‘My God, how much is their standard being raised by picking the brains of the Gilchrists and the Husseys?’ Getting Test match advice and taking it into their Saturday League matches.

“I remember seeing dressing rooms full of charts and diagrams about fielding drills, and motivational stuff, and thinking how in many ways it was more professional than a county dressing room. If we sent every young player out to pro in the leagues they’d have to stand on their own two feet and perform, because they’d be expected to be the star turn. They’d have to take the pressure of that and sink or swim.”

As for the current England set-up, Vaughan thinks that at least they have the right combination at the top in Andrew Strauss and Andy Flower. “The captain-coach relationship is crucial, which is why I felt, given their frosty relationship, that the Peter Moores-Kevin Pietersen liaison was doomed from the start.

“But Strauss and Flower are on the same wavelength. Strauss got the captaincy at the right time and I think Flower can be just as exceptional as I thought Duncan Fletcher was. I loved the way he didn’t get too excited when we won the Ashes. He doesn’t throw himself in front of the cameras and I like what I hear about what he’s doing behind the scenes.

“They also have the benefit of a new generation, with the chance to mould a team now the likes of myself, Flintoff, Harmison, Hoggard, Giles and Trescothick are not around. It’s a shame Harmy and Hoggy never got the chance to go out on their own terms, as I don’t think we’ll see either of them again. Harmy is still mentioned, but I don’t think they should go down that route even in an emergency. Better to give a new kid a go. We should move on.”

In other areas, Vaughan is not so sure we should be moving on, preferring less technology in decision-making — “there’s no place for guestimate gadgets like Hawkeye” — and the appointment of the best umpires whatever their nationality. He would even have an Australian standing in an Ashes series. “Simon Taufel has been the best there is for a long time now and I don’t think the England players would have a problem with him officiating in an Ashes Test. All you want is for the majority of the decisions to be correct and he gets most of them right.”

On coaches, Vaughan wants to see the ECB take the best away from the senior England set-up and redirect them towards 15 to 17-year-olds. “Our best coaches, mental, technical, tactical, physical, should be with the kids, so when they are 23 or 24 and playing for England, they’re self-maintaining.” It’s that stand-on-your-own-two-feet, toughen-them-up concept again.

On the IPL and the prospect of more England cricketers becoming freelance operators, he wants the ICC to find a clear window in the calendar for a shortened Twenty20 and allow all international players to go. “Then you won’t get freelances. In any event, does scoring 80 for the Delhi Daredevils give you the same feelgood factor as scoring a century for England? Our top players are earning a lot of money now so how much do they need?”

As for himself, Vaughan looks back with a few regrets, such as the “horrible” year out with knee trouble, “but I played 80-odd Tests, 50 or so as captain, and won an Ashes series against probably the greatest team that’s played the game. I think I’ve been pretty lucky”.

- Time To Declare by Michael Vaughan (Hodder & Stoughton, £19.99)

The good, bad and ugly of 2005

Michael Vaughan’s assessment of his Ashes-winning team in 2005:

Marcus Trescothick He occasionally needed ‘bigging up’ in terms of self-belief. The ultimate professional
Andrew Strauss Needed no managing. Knew what he was doing and was never intimidated
Ian Bell Quite young at the time and a bit vulnerable
Kevin Pietersen A free spirit who needed telling that he should just react to the situation
Andrew Flintoff The hardest to captain because he was such a genius on the pitch, but away from it he has this knack of upsetting people because he can be lazy
Geraint Jones A dream to captain and manage. You need people you can trust completely
Ashley Giles Interesting to manage, more so because we were close mates. There were times when he said he was shot away and could get quite emotional
Matthew Hoggard I used to bollock him all the time. I considered him the shop-floor man, doing the hard and dirty work. He could be stroppy and awkward
Simon Jones An interesting one. He was often unsure of his fitness and you could guarantee that one or two days before every game he would pull up with something or other
Steve Harmison Could be tough to manage on tour because he often did not want to be there. Loved to bowl and might sulk for an over after he was taken off