Rik said:
I wasn't on this board when the West Indies were over here last! But yes I did feel the same, I felt disapointed and robbed. Though England collapsed and made it interisting, and Corkie's innings made it less drab than it could have been. Certainly didn't deserve CH4's title of the best test ever though...
Pace, Aggression, Bounce and Wickets, well I'd hardly claim there is much aggression there, and you missed out his major attribute, luck, in spades.
I didn't feel disappointed or robbed at that Lord's match. Well, I did, rather, as England collapsed to 133 and it looked like we were in for another ghastly performance. But the next couple of hours were among the most exhilarating I've ever spent at a cricket match, and the next day probably the tensest. And after the raucous noise the previous evening, the hush around the jam-packed ground was an amazing contrast.
Whether or not it deserved a Best Test Ever award I wouldn't care to judge, but it ranks high on my list. Maybe you just had to be there.
Certainly it wasn't anything like the same for me today, watching it in my living room thousands of miles away from the action.
I'd agree that the WI batsmen contributed to their own demise, but I wouldn't want to write off Harmison's performance today as simplistically as that.
I'm not sure what 7-12 bowling is supposed to look like, but I can see what people mean when they say that what Harmison bowled didn't look like it, whatever it is. But there will always be occasions when bowlers get more wickets than they deserve, and others when they bowl really well for no reward.
The question lying at the back of the sceptical comments is "OK, what happens when he bowls like that against a bunch of batsmen not bent on suicide?"
And although the Harmo-bashers won't agree, I think that if he carries on bowling like that, he will take wickets. Against good batsmen playing properly as well as batsmen not playing very well for whatever reason.
They showed a graphic of where he'd been pitching the ball after about 6 or 7 overs. There were two which had pitched more than a foot wide of the stumps, and I reckon one of those had been deliberate. Two or three had been pitched well short, but the rest had pitched within a yard of each other, on a different length to the one he'd been pitching it on in the first innings. From this length, he got the ball to rear up into the batsmen, tucking them up and making it difficult for them to play, and several of them got themselves out by making poor attempts at probably the wrong balls. It was accurate, controlled pace bowling.
On that form, I'd reckon that he would get a wicket in his 6-7 over opening spell with the new ball a bit more often than not. And that will do for me, Tommy.
Cheers,
Mike
