Steve Harmison

[Uppercut]

Not true. Reporters saw and commented on the relevance at the time. Here's Mike Selvey's Guardian report from the Friday 22nd July 2005:

Until McGrath intervened with one of the most compelling bowling spells in Ashes history, it had been England who had stirred the patriotic fervour.

No England side, not even Douglas Jardine's, can have subjected Australia to such a comprehensive barrage of hostility as that inflicted by Michael Vaughan's pace attack yesterday.

Australia were dismissed inside 41 overs, barely an over more than Bangladesh lasted on this ground a couple of months ago. If England would like to claim that this was a genuine team bowling effort (and to some extent it was) it was Harmison, surging in from the Pavilion end, who unsettled the Australian batsmen with his pace, rhythm and bounce.

Inside the first hour each of the opposition top three - Justin Langer, Matthew Hayden and Ricky Ponting - had all received treatment on the field as a result of blows dealt by Harmison. Ponting's helmet grille sliced into his right cheekbone so that he needed butterfly stitches to staunch the blood. Immediately on resumption the Australian captain, clearly rattled, succumbed to the slip cordon.

----

Doesn't sound like after the fact revisionism to me. A former test quick recognised the significance immediately, even allowing for McGrath's surgical dissection of our top order.

It was followed days later by hundreds of articles on how England weren't as good as they thought they were/ were on their way to being stuffed again!

 

[JonnyB]

I would love to see Steve but i do think that Broad defo deserves it and Onions was very good agaisy West Indies. No option left but to drop him..... I do feel a little sorry for Steve though.

 

[zaremba]

There is no way that Sarwan is in the same class as Hussey or Katich. Sarwan is a slightly above average player with a record thats nothing special but just boosted by scores against mediocre opposition like Bangladesh.

I don't agree, but, as I feared, I've taken us off topic and can't be arsed arguing the point. Not sure anything turns on it anyway. So let's agree to disagree.

 

[JonnyB]

Expecting him to play later in the series & replicate what he did vs SA, @ the Oval last year.

Totally agree....Not at Cardiff but i think later on he will be more suited to the pitch.

 

[Furball]

Again, what exactly did Harmison do aside from york Amla that match?

Did I fall asleep and miss an awesome spell of bowling or something?

 

[tooextracool]

Yes you did, because it was a hostile spell of bowling that provided the perfect foil for others like Anderson to pick up wickets during that game. The combination of hostile pace and bounce at one end and then confounding swing from the other end from Anderson is one that was amazing to watch and had the entire SA batting side (who had dominated all series) completely befuddled. Prince for one, who England barely looked like getting out all series before that game looked absolutely clueless against Harmison in the first innings of that game. Looking purely at the bowling figures doesn't give a full picture of what Harmison brought to that attack for that game, because he added a completely new dimension to the bowling attack that England had been sorely missing all summer.

Personally, my own opinion of Harmison is that he has a role to play in England where he is an infinitely more dangerous bowler than abroad. Given what we expect from the pitch in Cardiff, I think England made the smart choice in not picking him, but I do think he could be useful in some of the games that follow.

 

[aussie]

Right on Teco...

 

[The Masterplan]

Strauss (c)
Cook
Bopara
Pietersen
Collingwood
Prior (wk)
Flintoff
Broad
Mahmood
Anderson
Panesar

 

[zaremba]

You'd drop Swann for Panesar? An interesting choice - what are your reasons for it?

 

[GIMH]

The bigger concern is surely Mahmood's inclusion

 

[The Masterplan]

Simply because i had to fit Mahmood in somewhere, and Swann can't bowl 90mph.

 

[zaremba]

Why include Panesar ahead of Swann though? I'd imagine that most people would have Swann ahead in all areas of the game.

 

[GIMH]

Simply because i had to fit Mahmood in somewhere, and Swann can't bowl 90mph.

what is it with you and Mahmood, I'm beginning to believe you actually are Saj..

 

[Richard]

Inetresting that virtually every player and expert rate Harmison extremely highly whilst majority of CWers think he's ****e

If this were true - and it isn't, it's a vast over-simplification - then it'd merely confirm what so many already know: plenty of CWers are actually far more expert on matters than plenty of so-called experts who happen to have contracts to air their views.

 

[Richard]

I would love to see Steve but i do think that Broad defo deserves it and Onions was very good agaisy West Indies. No option left but to drop him.....

You've got to be in a team to be dropped from it TBH. And I'd say you've got to be picked as a first-choice rather than cover for someone unavailable as well - "dropped" to me denotes going from first-choice to not first-choice.

 

[marc71178]

I suspect (and hope) we'll see him at some point this series, suspect he was only not in the squad for the 1st Test because it wouldn't have suited his bowling so he was never going to play, so therefore leave him to bowl for Durham, thus keeping his rhythm going and leaving in a better position to slip in later in the series, maybe even at Lords.

 

[Richard]

Nearly fell off my chair just there, crazy

Yeah, ditto. Looked at the "last post by..." and had to look twice to confirm I was seeing what I thought I was.

2 years and he finally returns. Dunno whether to say welcome back or not, never have been quite sure how it'll be taken.

 

[Richard]

And you know, thinking about it, there's whole generations (in CW terms) of posters who've grown-up not knowing who Marc is - or, at least, being familiar with him. Think of all the people who've joined since June 2007. That must be about 1\3 of the active population of CC. Who are only ever going to have come accross him by chance in dug threads. Some who have never even done this (and let's face it, dug threads are nowhere near as common as they used to be since the rules banning pointless digging were brought in after the K'tan\Mitchell\Thomas-gate scandal) and have not looked at the posting table either may never even have been aware he existed!

 

[fredfertang]

And you know, thinking about it, there's whole generations (in CW terms) of posters who've grown-up not knowing who Marc is. Think of all the people who've joined since June 2007. That must be about 1\3 of the active population of CC. Who are only ever going to have come accross him by chance in dug threads. Some who have never even done this and have not looked at the posting table either may never even have been aware he existed!

Best do us a biog from your encyclopaedic knowledge then Rich

 

[zaremba]

And you know, thinking about it, there's whole generations (in CW terms) of posters who've grown-up not knowing who Marc is. Think of all the people who've joined since June 2007. That must be about 1\3 of the active population of CC. Who are only ever going to have come accross him by chance in dug threads. Some who have never even done this and have not looked at the posting table either may never even have been aware he existed!

I didn't know there was a posting table. Who's winning?