Rediff

London, Jun 19: Michael Vaughan has quit as England one-day captain but will continue to be available for selection, the England and Wales Cricket Board said on Monday.

Vaughan, 32, who has averaged only 27 from his 86 one-day internationals and never scored a century, took over the captaincy from Nasser Hussain in May, 2003.

However, neither he or the teams he led managed much success in the shortened form of the game with only 32 wins from his 60 matches as skipper.

The ECB is yet to announce his replacement, but Paul Collingwood is the bookmakers' favourite.

England play West Indies [Images] in two Twenty20 games and three one-day internationals this month and then have seven one-dayers against India in August and September.

Vaughan, statistically England's most successful Test captain, said he had been considering his position since the World Cup.

"I reached this decision some time ago, but I did not want to announce it until after the end of this Test series to avoid it becoming a distraction to the team," Vaughan said in a statement from Durham, where he is captaining England in the fourth and final Test against West Indies.

"However, due to intense speculation in the media about my future, I feel it is important to make my intentions clear now.

"I will continue to play one-day cricket for Yorkshire and it is not my intention to retire from one-day international cricket as a player. I do, however, fully appreciate that the new captain will need a period of time to establish his own authority over the team."

England are ranked second in the world in Tests but only seventh in one-dayers.

A rare success came in Australia in February when they claimed a tri-series win over the hosts and New Zealand [Images] but they subsequently performed feebly in the World Cup where they failed to make the semi-finals.