Harmison and the 2005 Ashes

[Swervy]

I hate this argument. The series was not lost from that ball at all. If he Harmy goes back to his mark and bowls the rest of the over straight and managed an early wicket, the wide would have been seen just as a loosener.

as I say, not a lot of people subscribe to my point of view on this type of thing.

The fact is Harmsion is such a confidence bowler, he needs to be mentally right to bowl well more than any bowler I have seen play for England ever. If he had got the ball right on the money, he would have been lifted and bowled better, which COULD have led onto a good start for England etc etc, and who knows what would have happened then.

As I say, Harmsion needs to be bang on mentally to perform. The high risk part of it was there has probably never been a more highly anticipated delivery to start any test series in the history of the Ashes. Everyone was watching it. Fletcher knew it, Flintoff knew it, and worst of all Harmison knew it, and he bottled it.

Hoggard would have been the best bet to take the first ball by far, because he can take that pressure.

Of course it is easy to say in hindsight, but at the time I though it was high risk

 

[Swervy]

TBH, I was fairly certain our chances were low even before that wide.

Why you base anything on someone hitting Langer I really don't know. If you worried about someone hitting Langer, you'd be worred just about every single Test-match.

And I'll say it again... what about the numerous England batsmen that were hit that match? That was no statement of intent of any sort, it was just a reflection on a pitch that made short-pitched bowling very awkward. I doubt the players perceived it as anything but - you'll notice how virtually none of them have ever mentioned it. It's always the armchair "experts" who bring it up.

OK, we are obviously looking at this in a different way....agree to disgaree, I don't really want to be going round in circles over this

 

[Richard]

as I say, not a lot of people subscribe to my point of view on this type of thing.

The fact is Harmsion is such a confidence bowler, he needs to be mentally right to bowl well more than any bowler I have seen play for England ever. If he had got the ball right on the money, he would have been lifted and bowled better, which COULD have led onto a good start for England etc etc, and who knows what would have happened then.

As I say, Harmsion needs to be bang on mentally to perform. The high risk part of it was there has probably never been a more highly anticipated delivery to start any test series in the history of the Ashes. Everyone was watching it. Fletcher knew it, Flintoff knew it, and worst of all Harmison knew it, and he bottled it.

I think Harmison doesn't perform, personally, that's the long-and-short of it. What you saw in that Ashes and most of the rest of his career (barring 7 Tests at the start of 2004) is the norm.

 

[open365]

Meh, i think most people get that he wasn't as good in the series as is sometimes said.

After the ashes the whole angle was that everyone in the team played their part which is crap, Giles as usual was terrible and Ian Bell was ridiculously outclassed, harmison was largely ineffective.

 

[Swervy]

Meh, i think most people get that he wasn't as good in the series as is sometimes said.

After the ashes the whole angle was that everyone in the team played their part which is crap, Giles as usual was terrible and Ian Bell was ridiculously outclassed, harmison was largely ineffective.

well that can be exteded to Hoggard wasnt brilliant that series, Jones only bowled 100 overs all series..so I guess it really was Flintoffs Ashes then wasnt it

 

[open365]

Well you could do the super biased wicket analysis by Richard for each bowler and even though the margins would be smaller Harmison would still do worse than the other pace bowlers

 

[four_or_six]

Why you base anything on someone hitting Langer I really don't know. If you worried about someone hitting Langer, you'd be worred just about every single Test-match.

I'm so going to miss Langer, really and truly. He was great to watch.

 

[Richard]

Meh, i think most people get that he wasn't as good in the series as is sometimes said.

After the ashes the whole angle was that everyone in the team played their part which is crap, Giles as usual was terrible and Ian Bell was ridiculously outclassed, harmison was largely ineffective.

well that can be exteded to Hoggard wasnt brilliant that series, Jones only bowled 100 overs all series..so I guess it really was Flintoffs Ashes then wasnt it

It's hardly a secret Flintoff stood astride that Ashes like a colussus, is it?

Me, if I was doing marks-out-of-10 I'd have said something like:
Flintoff 10 - massive, best bowler by far, and batted better than I could ever have dreamt.
S Jones 7 - bowled superbly in 2 innings, bowled poorly at Lord's and not especially well at Edgbaston, and got injured after 3-and-a-half Tests, but those 2 first-innings spells did more than most things to decide the series.
Strauss 7 - two big innings and not much besides, but those 2 big innings were unquestionably huge in influence on the series, even if the first didn't, quite win the game.
Trescothick 7 - loads of rollicking starts against Australia's wayward seamers which were very helpful, but only went on to big scores after let-offs.
Pietersen 6 - yes, indeed, not as good as some said; superb in the lost First Test, but huge in turning the tide at Edgbaston too, with a phenominally sensible innings. Hugely overrated innings in the final game, nonetheless.
Vaughan 6 - several useful contributions, but wouldn't have made anything big but for two let-offs (in consecutive deliveries).
Hoggard 5 - was very poor for the first 3 Tests, but superlative (other than a couple of overs when Gilchrist slogged him for about 30) for the last 2.
Giles 4 - as Bowman said, useless for the most part (when the ball didn't turn... amazingly enough) but on the couple of occasions it did (first-innings at Edgbaston and Old Trafford) played a key part in the dominance.
G Jones 4 - one (in part very lucky - let-off on 42) innings at Trent Bridge and 'keeping that, in the end, didn't cost much with it's at-times-awful-ness, but hardly impressive.
Bell 3 - terrible for all the series bar 1 game.
Harmison 2 - terrible, even worse than Bell, for all the series bar 1 game where he dismissed a load of tailenders.
Collingwood _ - hard to rate someone on a single Test really, but undoubtedly played his part in keeping the wolf from the door at The Oval

As you see, it very much summed-up what I've always said about the series - an enthralling contest between two equally flawed sides (25 dropped catches... 104 no-balls ), which would've been half the spectacle (if that) but for two individuals, Andrew Flintoff and Shane Warne.

 

[Sanz]

England won the 2nd test because of Harmison's bowling. First on the last ball of the Day 3 he got Clark out and again on the next day he got Kaspa out when Aus were within 2 runs of taking a 2-0 lead. He brought England back into the series. To me those two were the two most important wickets of the test and probably the series. In the 3rd test he took the most valuable wicket of Ricky Ponting and and got England closer to win.

We can all talk about Tailender and top order wickets but at the end of the day you need to take all the wickets to win the test match and it was more evident in ashes 2005 than I have seen in any other test series.

 

[Sanz]

My point is though that maybe Harmison might not actually get enough credit from some people, whilst maybe he gets too much from elsewhere. I guess all I think is that fair enough he didnt have earth shatteringly brilliant figures, but his presence was vital to the balance of that team, and so warants credit for the contributions he made directly and maybe some of the less obvious things as well.

As an Australian, I remember how I felt when Harmison hit Langer on the arm and Ponting in the face on the first day of the series. It was like 'right ok,these guys are ready for action, this aint going to be easy'.

It is easy to dismiss this kind of symbolism, but those psychological landmarks are so vital in any sport, but especially cricket.

Its why before the last Ashes series, when I was a bit concerned about whether it would be too easy for Australia to win, as soon as that first wide ball was bowled by Harmison, I turned to my English mate and said we (Australia) had won the Ashes there and then. Harmison blew it big style, England were trying to make a psycological statement by opening with harmison then, but it was high risk and it failed, the tone was set for the series.
Its because those things are huge, when really it isnt accepted by most people that they are.

Anyway....thats my tuppence worth!!

Great well balanced Post, Nominate it for the best post of the week.

 

[Scaly piscine]

For those that go on about Harmison's figures being improved by the Lord's Test - Flintoff and Hoggard had their figures improved when the Aussie batsmen batted through the gloom with the ball moving all over the place and collapsed in the last Test. Harmison took hugely important wickets and controlled the run rate to an extent Hoggard, Giles and Jones couldn't during times when the ball wasn't doing anything and roughed up the Aussies on occasion. The pitches were generally belters where the only weapon for a seamer was swing at various times - only Lord's had anything in it for him.

 

[Richard]

And given that Hoggard, Jones and Flintoff are all vastly superior swing-bowlers, it goes without saying, then, that they should massively outperform him in the Tests that mattered.

 

[Richard]

England won the 2nd test because of Harmison's bowling. First on the last ball of the Day 3 he got Clark out and again on the next day he got Kaspa out when Aus were within 2 runs of taking a 2-0 lead. He brought England back into the series. To me those two were the two most important wickets of the test and probably the series. In the 3rd test he took the most valuable wicket of Ricky Ponting and and got England closer to win.

We can all talk about Tailender and top order wickets but at the end of the day you need to take all the wickets to win the test match and it was more evident in ashes 2005 than I have seen in any other test series.

Haha, in which case Gary Pratt must be MOTS because he gained a single wicket via a run-out.

Most people realise the fact that the more top-order wickets you take, the better your performance has been.

To suggest that anyone bar Flintoff was the biggest player in the Second Test victory is so laughable it would beggar belief if we didn't know that it was solely being said as pedantry.

 

[Jono]

Why you base anything on someone hitting Langer I really don't know. If you worried about someone hitting Langer, you'd be worred just about every single Test-match.

Lol! So true.

 

[Swervy]

It's hardly a secret Flintoff stood astride that Ashes like a colussus, is it?

Me, if I was doing marks-out-of-10 I'd have said something like:
Flintoff 10 - massive, best bowler by far, and batted better than I could ever have dreamt.
S Jones 7 - bowled superbly in 2 innings, bowled poorly at Lord's and not especially well at Edgbaston, and got injured after 3-and-a-half Tests, but those 2 first-innings spells did more than most things to decide the series.
Strauss 7 - two big innings and not much besides, but those 2 big innings were unquestionably huge in influence on the series, even if the first didn't, quite win the game.
Trescothick 7 - loads of rollicking starts against Australia's wayward seamers which were very helpful, but only went on to big scores after let-offs.
Pietersen 6 - yes, indeed, not as good as some said; superb in the lost First Test, but huge in turning the tide at Edgbaston too, with a phenominally sensible innings. Hugely overrated innings in the final game, nonetheless.
Vaughan 6 - several useful contributions, but wouldn't have made anything big but for two let-offs (in consecutive deliveries).
Hoggard 5 - was very poor for the first 3 Tests, but superlative (other than a couple of overs when Gilchrist slogged him for about 30) for the last 2.
Giles 4 - as Bowman said, useless for the most part (when the ball didn't turn... amazingly enough) but on the couple of occasions it did (first-innings at Edgbaston and Old Trafford) played a key part in the dominance.
G Jones 4 - one (in part very lucky - let-off on 42) innings at Trent Bridge and 'keeping that, in the end, didn't cost much with it's at-times-awful-ness, but hardly impressive.
Bell 3 - terrible for all the series bar 1 game.
Harmison 2 - terrible, even worse than Bell, for all the series bar 1 game where he dismissed a load of tailenders.Collingwood _ - hard to rate someone on a single Test really, but undoubtedly played his part in keeping the wolf from the door at The Oval

As you see, it very much summed-up what I've always said about the series - an enthralling contest between two equally flawed sides (25 dropped catches... 104 no-balls ), which would've been half the spectacle (if that) but for two individuals, Andrew Flintoff and Shane Warne.

The just completely destroys any credibility you have on the matter. You are obviously so biased against Harmison just to save face from years of saying he has never been any good, you are willing to make a fool out of yourself by saying ridiculous things like this.

 

[Swervy]

Most people realise the fact that the more top-order wickets you take, the better your performance has been.

Ok so if Harmison took out the top 3, and Flintoff mopped up the remaining 7, Harmison would have the better performance would he????

In fact he may well have had the better performance, you cant just say that 'the more top-order wickets you take, the better your performance has been.' Again, its about context

 

[Sanz]

Haha, in which case Gary Pratt must be MOTS because he gained a single wicket via a run-out.

Typical Knee-Jerk Reaction when running out of arguments. I never suggested that Harmison should have been MOTS just that you are heavily underrating his performance in Ashes 2005. He was not the main bowler, but a very good support bowler who at times crucial wickets and was an important cog of the Ashes 2005 attack.

Most people realise the fact that the more top-order wickets you take, the better your performance has been.

No, it depends upon the situation of the game and the way the tailenders are batting, you just cant make a sweeping statement like that at least in regards to Ashes 2005 where some of the tailenders were batting way better than some top order batsmen.

And even if we disregard that, Harmison's top order Wicket % were- 58.8 compared to Jones 55.5. I hope you dont discredit Jones off his performance in the Ashes now.

To suggest that anyone bar Flintoff was the biggest player in the Second Test victory is so laughable it would beggar belief if we didn't know that it was solely being said as pedantry.

Dude, dont put words into my mouth and please try to argue properly, because If I start doing that You cry worse than a 3 year old.

Fact is all the heroics of Flintoff were not enough and would have gone invain and would have been considered uselss had Harmison not taken the wicket of Kaspa which you continue to dismiss as a tailender wicket. It was the most important wicket of the test match followed by Clark and Warne's. If not for that wicket, Australia would have won the test match with Warne as the MoTM, England would have been in a 0-2 hole. As someone said earlier, it is not as black and white as you try to put.

 

[Richard]

The just completely destroys any credibility you have on the matter. You are obviously so biased against Harmison just to save face from years of saying he has never been any good, you are willing to make a fool out of yourself by saying ridiculous things like this.

Nope. I've said that all along, it's nothing new, I haven't made a fool out of myself by saying Harmison is no good for years, in fact quite the opposite. I've been right all along, in fact.

 

[Richard]

Ok so if Harmison took out the top 3, and Flintoff mopped up the remaining 7, Harmison would have the better performance would he????

In fact he may well have had the better performance, you cant just say that 'the more top-order wickets you take, the better your performance has been.' Again, its about context

I was posting towards Sanz, I needed to be fairly simplistic.

 

[Richard]

Typical Knee-Jerk Reaction when running out of arguments. I never suggested that Harmison should have been MOTS just that you are heavily underrating his performance in Ashes 2005. He was not the main bowler, but a very good support bowler who at times crucial wickets and was an important cog of the Ashes 2005 attack.

No, he wasn't. Everyone will get wickets if they bowl enough. I was very obviously exaggerating, just as you (unintentionally) were by saying Harmison was the biggest reason England won the Edgbaston Test.

No, it depends upon the situation of the game and the way the tailenders are batting, you just cant make a sweeping statement like that at least in regards to Ashes 2005 where some of the tailenders were batting way better than some top order batsmen.

And even if we disregard that, Harmison's top order Wicket % were- 58.8 compared to Jones 55.5. I hope you dont discredit Jones off his performance in the Ashes now.

Kasprowicz and Tait were never batting better than any top-order batsman. Neither of their wickets are ever worth much.

Dude, dont put words into my mouth and please try to argue properly, because If I start doing that You cry worse than a 3 year old.

Fact is all the heroics of Flintoff were not enough and would have gone invain and would have been considered uselss had Harmison not taken the wicket of Kaspa which you continue to dismiss as a tailender wicket. It was the most important wicket of the test match followed by Clark and Warne's. If not for that wicket, Australia would have won the test match with Warne as the MoTM, England would have been in a 0-2 hole. As someone said earlier, it is not as black and white as you try to put.

No, they wouldn't. In fact, had Brent Bowden given the lbw he should have given to Kasprowicz 1st ball, or had Jones taken the catch he should have taken at third-man, Flintoff's delivery would have been the final one of the Test. So, in fact, Flintoff won it twice. That Umpiring and catching was not good enough, and that it was with Harmison's final delivery, is no reflection at all on Flintoff.

Saying that the bowler who took the last wicket did most to win the Test is one of the more ludicrous things I've ever read.