Michael Vaughan dragged his weary body away from The Oval having finished his first summer as captain with a memorable victory over South Africa.

Vaughan was in the dressing room to begin the celebrations as man-of-the-match Marcus Trescothick edged Jacques Kallis over the slip cordon to the third man boundary and complete England's nine-wicket victory to square a dramatic npower Test series.

But as Vaughan heads back to Sheffield for a well-earned rest prior to another busy winter he will not be among those who celebrated yesterday's victory as passionately as they did three years ago when the series victory over West Indies was completed. Instead, he is taking a pragmatic view and will reflect on opportunities missed and his failure to register scores of note since taking over the captaincy. ''We have to be realistic and we have only drawn the series 2-2,'' he said.

''It's a fantastic result here and a fantastic performance - we'll look back on a fantastic win here, but realistically we should have won the series because we should have won at Headingley.

''Both teams have been pretty even and the 2-2 draw suggests that, but both teams probably sat in the dressing room kicking themselves they haven't won the series."

However, Vaughan could not help but admire the way his team overcame a significant disadvantage on the opening day to wrap up victory shortly after lunch yesterday having swotted South Africa's last resistance aside. They took just 55 minutes and 75 balls to dismiss the tourists for 229, setting a victory target of 110, after they had resumed only 65 ahead on 185 for six but with Mark Boucher and Shaun Pollock standing in England's way of a series-levelling victory.

England picked up where they had left off the previous evening with Martin Bicknell claiming two wickets off successive deliveries in the fourth over to firstly tempt Boucher into chasing a wide ball and edging behind to Alec Stewart and then inducing Andrew Hall into fending straight to mid-wicket.

Steve Harmison built on that bright start to also finish with two wickets when Pollock fended him to backward point and last man Makhaya Ntini looped a short delivery up and enabled Ed Smith to run back from short leg to take a diving catch.

Facing a modest total, Trescothick overcame being dropped by Hall at slip after scoring only one to blaze away in a similar fashion to the manner in which he brought up his double century earlier in the match. His confident approach contrasted starkly with Vaughan's, who has struggled to cope with being captain and opening batsman and has failed to reach 50 in his seven previous innings since succeeding Nasser Hussain earlier this summer.

That was continued when he slashed wildly at the second delivery after lunch from all-rounder Jacques Kallis and edged behind, but by then England needed only 63 for victory and only nine overs later Trescothick had hammered them to their deserved triumph with an unbeaten 69 off only 66 balls.

It was a turnaround good enough for Vaughan to claim: ''It's the best win of my career. My scores would suggest the captaincy is affecting my batting. It's difficult and it's been an eye-opener - it's definitely more tiring, but I'm only four games into the job.