Steve Harmison bowls garbage in a one-dayer again

How are we doing this? As a one-dayer or as an Ashes prequel?

As a one-dayer it was business as usual for England. Of their three strategies, they went for 'starting encouragingly and really tailing off'. Their other two strategies are 'starting abysmally and clawing their way to a respectable defeat' and 'getting walloped'.

A decent opening stand preceded a jaw-dropping collapse with the not unexpected conclusion of Paul Collingwood being stranded not out. They'd lost by then, but a couple of early wickets were a good start to Australia's innings before the inevitable.

As an Ashes prequel it was mostly a whole load of nothing: Sajid Mahmood can take wickets, but can go for a few. Ian Bell can actually score runs against Australia. Glenn McGrath's off the pace at the minute. There's nothing major to glean, although Steve Harmison's astonishingly low skill level in this form of the game could yet be of importance. It's wides, half-volleys, half-trackers and a leg-stump line from the guy again and again. We love him, but it's more through loyalty on days like this.

England scrabble around for the ignition switch

That's a reference to 'coming to the boil'. Excuse our nerves, but we've been conditioned to panic at losses in warm-up games Down Under. Previously, they heralded outright humiliation. We're still quite confident as far as the Ashes goes, but you can't throw away all these years of experience.

It's Pavlovian conditioning. England concede 325-5, as they did last night and we are conditioned to run round yelping: "No. No. The wheels are coming off. Abandon tour. ABANDON TOUR."

As Patrick described past Ashes tour matches on the Times' cricket blog the other day:

"Go to bed as England start to play and wake up eight hours later to a radio announcer saying 'and in cricket, England suffered a humiliating defeat...'"

Of course it's not so bad these days. England still lose warm-up games with alarming regularity, but when the Tests come, they inevitably get their act together. It's still a trifle worrying though. Steve Harmison got carted, for one thing. We'd really like a bit of reassurance from him before long. If Faintly Underwhelming Steve Harmison is replaced by Destructive Steve Harmison for the first Test, that's fine, but we'd really prefer the swap a little earlier.

Also during this tour match, Duncan Fletcher revealed that James Anderson is currently ahead of Sajid Mahmood. James Anderson bowled whereas Sajid Mahmood didn't, so this is unlikely to change.

Faintly Underwhelming Steve Harmison

We're not a sports graduate or an ECB cricket coach, like this guy, but we're fairly certain that international bowlers should know where the ball's going. We're absolutely positive that second slip shouldn't be in any danger.

We stayed up to watch the Ashes like the good writing-about-cricket-every-day-person that we are. We made it until tea before all the caffeine wore off. Earlier, as the first ball was about to be bowled, we were literally on the edge of our seat. We were secretly quite pleased that England had lost the toss, because our fantasy about Steve Harmison knocking over the Australian top order could still happen. Steve Harmison ran in and bowled the most monstrous wide you're ever likely to see.

Don't get us wrong. We love Steve Harmison. That's why he plays such a major part in our Day One of the Ashes Fantasy. We're just pissed off that he ruined it.

We don't much care whether it's nerves, rhythm, falling away in the delivery stride or a poor wrist position. We don't even care if it's because the Gabba's infested with Wombles and they kept surfacing underneath him during his run-up. All we care about is that England players are ready to perform at the best of their abilities. Frankly, there are enough staff down there to ensure this happens.

Who knows, maybe Destructive Steve Harmison will replace Faintly Underwhelming Steve Harmison tomorrow. All we're saying is we'd like to see a lot less of the latter.

Andrew Flintoff bowling

Andrew Flintoff was England's best bowler by quite a wide margin. Each of his spells only served to emphasise just how poor and/or ineffective everyone else was.

On this pitch, against these batsmen, with these cricket balls, bowlers really do have to make it count, particularly with the new ball. Steve Harmison was dire, progressing to nearly-respectable. Matthew Hoggard was predictably solid yet ineffectual. James Anderson bowled some good balls and a number of bad ones.

Andrew Flintoff, however, put the ball exactly where he wanted straight away. He started accurately, testing the batsmen, and the more he bowled, the quicker he got. Either he doesn't get nervous, or he's got a technique that he can totally rely on.

England's Rugby World Cup winning fly-half, Jonny Wilkinson, once said: "I always aim to be able to leave the training pitch confident of my technique." That confidence is just as important as having the technique. If you've got faith in your method, that will go some way to calming your nerves.

Andrew Flintoff is clearly secure in his method, as is Matthew Hoggard. Steve Harmison clearly isn't. Whether he needs extra practice to sort his technique is arguable. That he needs extra practice to fight back the doubt, is surely undeniable.

We're a little bit concerned that Kevin Shine might be talking balls about Steve Harmison

Steve Harmison bowled loads of wides and other garbage during the first Test. Kevin Shine is England's bowling coach. It's his job to mend Steve. Here's what we just read in the Sydney Morning Herald:

According to Shine, a change of just two degrees in the angle of Harmison's bowling arm was the initial cause of the fast bowler's problems.
When bowling at his best, Harmison's arm is six degrees past the perpendicular towards his head. That, however, blew out to eight degrees at various stages at the Gabba, prompting him to lose all sense of direction and rhythm in his first few spells.

We'll be the first to admit that we know less about the technicalities of elite fast bowling that we do about 'applying ourself'. However, two degrees sounds like a mighty fine line between success and abject failure.

Kevin Shine might well be right, but we're worried that to the ears of Steve Harmison, this sounds like: "Steve. There is, quite literally, NO margin for error here. If you're out with one of your movements, by so much as a degree, you'll transform into Crap Bowling Man."

With this playing on your mind in front of millions of people, how would you bowl? We get a bit wobbly and uncertain when we think someone's watching us walk and walking's piss-easy.

James Anderson and Steve Harmison continue to bother England's selectors

England would have hoped that several key selection issues would have resolved themselves during this tour match against Western Australia.

Obviously they wouldn't have wanted James Anderson to bowl badly. But if he had have bowled badly, it would have been easier to drop him, which they must be thinking about. James Anderson was the pick of England's bowlers with 3-53.

Steve Harmison isn't likely to get dropped. What the selectors would have wanted to see would have been an upturn in form. Steve Harmison took 1-99.

The selectors would have probably wanted something from Monty Panesar that would have helped make their minds up too. Monty took 1-69.

There's another innings at least.

Steve Harmison's been mended

Apologies to Kevin Shine. You weren't talking balls. You appear to have fixed Steve Harmison.

We were a bit dubious, but he bowled solidly today in taking 4-48. It's a massive relief for any Englishman. It was a good pitch for him, but that wouldn't have mattered if he'd been 'angling the ball down the leg side' - read 'inexplicably bowling the ball at the non-striking batsman'.

Hurray.

There could also be a case that the magic of Monty rubs off on Harmison. We should capitalise that, actually. 'The Magic of Monty'.

During the summer, we watched another day of cricket on a hard, bouncy pitch. Monty Panesar took five wickets and Harmison four as England tore into Pakistan. The crowd went mental. Let's pretend that the rest of the Ashes hasn't happened and that this match is just a continuation of that.

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.

20 wickets in a match - Steve Harmison needs to get a couple of them at least

Matthew Hoggard's injured; Andrew Flintoff still can't bowl; Liam Plunkett was ineffectual; and once rain fell, Test Match Special may as well have been retitled 'the Steve Harmison puzzle'. How the hell are England ever going to win a Test ever again?

As ever, we don't have the answer. James Anderson will probably come in for Matthew Hoggard. Anderson hasn't been in form, but then again neither were any of the batsmen who scored hundreds in this match.

We'd give anything for Steve Harmison to get things right though. The alternative - an England attack of willing fast-medium bowlers - is too horrible to contemplate.

We can see it now: Three or four accurate, yet nondescript, typically English bowlers. There's a big partnership, but no matter how relentlessly they pitch the ball on off stump, the batsmen just don't seem troubled. India, Australia or whoever close on a billion for none.

At least Steve Harmison's bouncy and quick. That's why he plays. We've never seen a bowler top 90mph with such little effort. When all's well, it really is an easy game for Steve Harmison. Unfortunately, all hasn't been well for some time now.

Don't drop him though. The grass isn't greener. It's mend Steve or nothing in our eyes. There are a couple of promising bowlers, but Steve's promise is still greater, no matter what's happened.

Cross-posted at A Different Stroke

Day five of the first Test, England v West Indies at Lord's:
England: 553-5 declared (Alastair Cook 105, Paul Collingwood 111, Ian Bell 109no, Matt Prior 126no)
West Indies: 437 all out (Monty Panesar 6-129)
England: 284-8 declared (Kevin Pietersen 109)
West Indies: 89-0
Match drawn

Steve Harmison - the view from someone with first-hand experience

Stuart Law speaking on the BBC website, said that Brad Hodge made the following comment having faced Harmison recently: "****, he was quick!"

Brad Hodge is Australian, so it's fairly unlikely he was saying: 'Once he was quick'.

We're telling you about an article on the BBC website where the person who faced Harmison is quoted by a team mate. It's first-hand experience at its purest.

Steve Harmison minces Kent

Bowlers win matches. England's most important bowler is Steve Harmison. When Steve Harmison plays well, England play well. Steve Harmison hasn't played all that well in Tests of late.

Fortunately, he seems to be finding a bit of form. He's taken rucks of wickets in every match he's played so far this season, most recently against Kent, where he took 4-75 and then 5-61 in a Durham win.

Steve Harmison's 7-12 against the West Indies is a performance he's never likely to improve upon, but they're definitely a side he enjoys playing, which is good news with a Test against them starting on Thursday. The 7-12 kicked things off, but he continued to bowl well against them when they toured England that same year.

After a winter spent watching them lose, we're looking forward to a more positive England returning this summer. Harmison's taken more wickets at a lower average than anyone in the first division so far this season - 24 wickets at 14.37. If he's truly back to his best, then so might England be.

Harmison place in jeopardy.

His place in the King Cricket top ten, that is.

We really do love the lanky, unshaven Lovejoy fan, but Virender Sehwag is making a strong case for inclusion with 96 off 89 balls with 20 fours in his current innings.

There's only one way out for his gangliness: Bowl Sehwag in the series against India.

Steve, your fate's in your own hands.

9 - Steve Harmison

What? What’s the problem? Shoaib Akhtar? Are you kidding? Glenn McGrath? No way. When Steve’s on song, he’s like Glenn McGrath only faster and therefore better. Plus he got Michael Kasprowicz out at the end of the BEST TEST EVER and made us emotional even though we are a boy and our only emotions are ‘hate’ and ‘hungry’.

Fast bowlers should be fast. Proper fast. They should hurt people. That’s what fast bowlers do. They don’t care about accuracy except for aiming at people’s faces. Hooray for Steve.

Anyway, he’s English and we don’t pretend to be anything other than outrageously biased. If you really love Steve Harmison, you can sing: ‘Steven. Steven Harmison’, to the tune of ‘Go West’ by the Pet Shop Boys. We do. Even in winter when we're just driving to work and there’s no cricket on anywhere in the world.