Steve Harmison

hi everyone. the ashes campaign of 2006/07 was a complete waste and to me at the centre of it all was Steve Harmison. to me Harmison really went on like a 'softy' and that's putting it mildly. complaints about homesickness and lose of confidence, all meagre excuses. then it culminates in him retiring from ODI cricket, just compunds England's present state. i believe Harmison, if he's not up to the rigours of being an international cricketer should seriously reconsider his profession. what do you users out there think of Harmison.

I feel he was right to dump ODI cricket. England need him at the height of his powers in Tests and i feel that hes made the right choice.

You guys probably missed the SCG test. He was bowling quite well then. But it was a little too late.

I almost closed this as Harmison has been much discussed in the Ashes Current Matches thread. I decided to leave it (albeit moving it to player discussion) as Harmison will be a major talking point when the Windies arrive in England in May.
     At the moment Harmison is just below Hitler , Attila the Hun and The Australian Prime Minister in my popularity list!

 I never saw him play WG (i'm not that old!) , but the word was he was a nasty piece of work if his side lost . Apparently he threw them onto bonfires or suchlike - Harmison wouldn't have played in a 2nd series under Attilla!

    The other good news , Harmison's beloved Newcastle United were routed 5-1 at St James's Park last night by mighty Birmingham City in the F.A Cup - they must've shown the resolve Harmison showed in spades whilst downunder! He'd have been there too - serves him right!

As I keep saying, take away his central contract and let him get his act together. If you remember a few years ago he wasn't given one but was selected to tour Bangladesh where, surprise surprise he had an outstanding match taking 9 wickets.

Typically enough though he got injured and had to go home. At this point there were strong murmurs that the England management were fed up with him and he wouldn't be back in the team. This was the backdrop to him going to the West Indies with much to prove, and as history shows he duly did so.

Since then he has been patchy, and his performance and general demeanour on tour has been dreadful (the Ashes was bad but he was much worse in South Africa).

So take away the juicy annual salary he gets from the ECB and tell him if he wants to make a nice living he better perform and keep doing so.

If England stuck with him I've no doubt that he will still come up with those devastating spells in the future. The question is, how often? Will he come up with one a series, or will he dominate whole series like he did in the Windies? Looking at him, I'd say the former, but then...he's such a confidence player, who knows when he might suddenly become "Old Harmy" again.

I agree with most of you that he isn't worth taking that risk on, send him back to county cricket and if he really has the desire for it he'll bowl out of his skin and the selectors will have to sit up and take note.

Harmison is an immense bowler, and has proven that he is one of the best fast bowlers in the world currently, however you might say that he had a disastrous Ashes series this winter, and he did have a poor one, but if you take away the worst five innings of the series (both in Brisbane, both in Adelaide and one in Perth) he took 8 wickets for 210 runs at 26.25, in those five innings he took 2 wickets for 404 runs at 202. Now that just proves how well he came back from his terrible performances in the first two tests, but people seem to forget that, and I think he fully deserves his place in the team and as he's shown in the past is a world class batsman.

Harmison is a good bowler but I have to agree his a bit "soft". His decision to retire from ODI cricket is definately a big blow to England but I guess everyone has to respect that decision. I think it was a bad decision since he is still quite young and he has the talent. However, personal reasons I guess...whatever they may be they are not good enough though.

Knowing him, he'd probably retire!

yes I guess he does not value his place in the test side......sad......because there are some many others that are dying to be there right now. He needs to grow up a bit.

It's something that separates the greats from the goods. The greats have some poor time but recover quickly and with a bang! The good one's takes longer and doesn't come back with that Bang.

If everyone thinks that being an international cricket is tough, try being a Newcastle fan!

Harmison is just too destructive on top form to leave out. On English soil, he cannot be overlooked.

Edited by TCA123 - 21 March 2007 at 10:05pm

It is a real shame to see Harmy play badly although it also annoys me greatly and I don't get annoyed easily. I know people who play cricket non-stop, I know people who would die to have a chance in a test team, you hear the barmy army shouting loudly at the end of a 5-0 Ashes thrashing and yet there is a player here that quite obviously can't really be bothered.

Everyone is right in that he need a good kick in the right direction. Another intresting thought is that Simon Jones wants to be back in may so we have an attack that consists of

Certs
Flintoff
Hoggard
Panesar

Others
Harmison
Jones
Anderson
Plunkett
Mahmood
Broad

And its really great that we have all this fast bowling talent but will Harmison be able to find a play in our side at all if he isn't on form. Anderson is more of a swing bowler but he gets some decent pace, Mahmood is Harmison style right down to the scattergun effect but Plunkett and Broad(who are also competant batsmen) are also there waiting and with only five bowling options do we really need a player that isn't going to go for it?