Harmison a doubt for second test
Can he bounce back?
By Jon Steer
March 10 2008
Steve Harmison's up and down international career took another dive last week with a disappointing performance in the first test against New Zealand. Figures of 1-120 in the first innings and just four overs bowled in the second must put his place in the test line up in question.
Steve Harmison's international career has never been a smooth one, he has many critics ready to pick him up on all aspects of his cricket and he has given them planety to talk about with his disappointing performance in the first test against New Zealand.
Figures of 1-120 in the first innings and only four overs bowled in the second innings tell a pretty stark story but all strike bowlers can be expensive and all have matches where they don't take wickets, especially on pitches similar to the lifeless one seen last week. What tells a more worrying story is the fact that Steve was only bowling at around 80mph for much of the game and whether this is down to injury, match fitness or just confidence it is difficult to justify picking him a a strike bowler when he's not bowling much quicker than Colly...
No doubt Ottis Gibson will have be having more than a few words with Steve over the coming days as he tries to get him in the best mindset for the second test and hopefully the England selectors will be convinced that Steve does still have that match winning ability that he has shown with such destructiveness in the past. Steve needs confidence and to gain confidence he needs to keep his place and bowl lots. Dropping him now will make it very hard to select him for the third test and another series will be gone.
Durham supporters of course while wanting him to do well for England have the very attractive fall back position of a lengthy county season with Steve opening the bowling should he fall out of favour with the England management.
It does look a bit ominous for Harmy right now but if he is fit then I wouldn't drop him after one test especially as the alternatives-Broad or Anderson-were all over the place in the one day matches.
I think England should retain the same team and we can just hope Moores and Vaughan can somehow instill some confidence in the side because the lack of confidence, is in my opinion, the main problem. England have far more quality players than the opposition-they just need to believe in themselves more.
Making changes to the side could be counter-productive because the remaining players might feel they are liable to get dropped if they perform poorly in the next match and that won't help them to relax and play their natural game.
As much as I'd like to see Harmy opening the bowling for Durham, I'd prefer him to get back to his best form in test cricket and prove his critics wrong.