Khawaja has returned to the middle order to accommodate Travis Head and Jake Weatherald as openers. Weatheraldโs last two Tests have produced scores of 18, 1, 10 and 5.
Vaughan expects Australia to persist with Weatherald in Sydney but is concerned by a technical flaw.
โAt times heโs looked OK. That head position outside off stump is going to be a real problem for him,โ Vaughan said. โHe canโt keep falling over to those straight balls. Heโll need some decent runs in Sydney, Iโm sure, to carry on his dream of playing for Australia for a long period of time.
โFive matches is a good chunk of opportunity for any player.โ
Englandโs victory in Melbourne was their first on Australian soil since 2011, but Vaughan argued it came in unusual circumstances.
โI think itโs a massive game for England [in Sydney]. Itโs nice to win a game of cricket, but letโs be honest, it was a complete lottery in Melbourne. It wasnโt a proper game of Test match cricket,โ Vaughan said.
Skipper Ben Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum. Credit: Getty Images
A poor display in Sydney, following a fifth successive series in which England have failed to regain the urn, could spell trouble for coach McCullum and skipper Stokes.
โFor the future and for this management in particular, they need to win a strong game of cricket here โฆ thatโs not a two-dayer,โ he said.
โFor this management to carry on, the likes of Ben and Baz โ Iโm pretty sure they will carry on โ but I think they need a good week for that to be absolutely rock solid.
Loading
โThereโs a huge appetite within the group to keep [McCullum] on. But fundamentally, if they get pummelled in Sydney, there needs to be some honest conversations.
โI think chopping and changing is not necessarily the right thing for English cricket. Whatever happens at the end of this tour, theyโve got to accept that they got a lot of things wrong.
โIf theyโre going to be so stubborn to think that they were a bit unlucky, or things didnโt quite go the way they wanted โฆ well, we have a problem going forward.
โThe key is maturity and thatโs the one thing that I think this team can be a lot better at, in terms of the way they play and talk.
โIf they can accept that, I have no problem with the management staying the same.โ
News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport are sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.
