Portrait of Michael Vaughan as an artist

Michael Vaughan is branching out. Not content with just a cricketing career, the former England captain has hired a warehouse near his Yorkshire home and taken up painting.

But he doesn't use a brush, says Alistair Smart in the Sunday Telegraph. Instead, inspired by Martina Navratilova's "tennising" canvasses, he creates his works by whacking paint-daubed cricket balls at a canvas fixed to the wall.

The results are not entirely random: he knows the effect he's after, and relies on his expert hand-eye coordination to achieve it. The works are expected to sell for up to £30,000 - but Vaughan reckons he's not English cricket's finest artist.

That distinction apparently belongs to Paul Collingwood, who is "very good at still lifes," says Vaughan. "When he's out for none, he'll go back to the dressing room and draw the boots, bags and bats [scattered about] the floor."