Steve Harmison retires from one-day internationals

This should really have appeared yesterday, but we thought that we'd give Warne his day in the limelight. Always the bridesmaid, that's Shane Warne. About time he was at the centre of things.

Steve Harmison also announced his retirement (of a form) yesterday. He's retiring from one-dayers because he thinks they're crap and because he's rubbish at them. He's supposed to be unhappy with the white ball when it's new. Apparently it swings too much.

We've been reading conflicting things about Steve Harmison's commitment to cricket, recently. The official line is that he's retiring from one-dayers to prolong his Test career, which is a fairly common reason among England players. However, various people seem to think that Harmison will only play cricket for as long as he needs to.

Michael Vaughan's one. In his book he reckons that Harmison will retire as soon as he's got enough money (presumably for life). We've also read a number of predicted England sides for the next Ashes that don't feature Harmison. Nothing's mentioned about his omission and it's as if he'll be past it, but he'll only be 31. He's bowled badly recently, but that's not the way we've read these stories. They read like he'll be unavailable.

Contrast that with his interview in a recent All Out Cricket. He claimed to want to play for as long as he can. He certainly looks pretty happy when he takes a wicket. Sometimes his love of football is overstated, we think. Like he doesn't like cricket at all. A boyhood desire to play football for Newcastle doesn't exclude enjoyment of anything else.