RBLC, what surprising pessimism!

Tres was our second best batsman of the last Ashes series, averaging 43 which gives me confidence if he is over his illness. Think of how many great starts we got off to in the last Ashes series, especially the one at Edgbaston where he and Strauss really got stuck into Warne! I would think the Aussie wickets will also be more spin-friendly than ours on which Monty has done pretty well, so I don't think he's somehow going to be the failure everyone thinks he will. Harmy will do well and enjoy the bounce, but it's Mahmood I'm worried about, perhaps less so than in ODIs but he needs to be be more consistent rather than produce one magic spell in the middle of a load of dross. Plunkett could do well if he plays, but he can be a bad starter, and of course the team dropped a lot of catches off him against Sri Lanka so who knows?!

Overall I think we're going to do well and have a very good chance of winning, but that's just the way I am.

Harmison does not look a shadow of his former self

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Bill Ponsford - The only one who could play in Bradman’s company and make it a duet.

Still got better figures than Lee in this game though.

Harmison's issue is Rythmn... he only needs to click once and he will become a very different proposition....

It was only four months ago that he almost won a Test single-handly

http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/engvp...ch/225256.html

If the Aussies want to write him off, fine, but they do that at their peril. He is a tall, nasty fast-bowler and he can bowl a throat high bouncer at 90MPH...

I don’t rate Lee, yes Harmison is a rhythm bowler, but when out of form rhythm bowlers take more to get into form that bowlers like McGrath, Flintoff, Pollock and Vaas whose actions are technically brilliant.

Harmison is more in the style of bowlers like Gillespie and Ntini. He may just need overs under his belt but he seems to have problems at the moment. It was good to see him take 3 wickets against NSW taking the key wickets of Cowan (10 first class matches with a batting average of 37), Smith (NSW's back up keeper with two first class matches under his belt making his belt) and Henriques (19 year old all rounder with also two first class matches under his belt) Three experienced batsman with a combined total of 14 matches between all three of them.

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Bill Ponsford - The only one who could play in Bradman’s company and make it a duet.

You can only dismiss what is in front of you.I notice that Lee has gone for a load of runs without getting many wickets.No change there then.

Im might just be right with Harmison at the moment like I was right about McGrath and what has happened so far in the first test.

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Bill Ponsford - The only one who could play in Bradman’s company and make it a duet.

Geraint Jones.What a player,surely Read would have done better.

Then again we said the same about Giles and Panesar and look what happened there.