After spending 2 test matches trying to get him match fit why not stick it out. He cant bowl much worse so there is a fair chance he will improve on his next outing.

The Adelaide wicket did nothing to assist the true speed men by playing so slow and low after the ball hit the wicket.

Lee and Anderson struggled as well.

He (Harmison) cant say he's home sick as he's flown his parents and his wife out to Australia.

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Mark.

I think they should drop Harmison.

In the 2005 series it was fairly obvious that Gillespie should have gotten the flick after the second test but he played in the third.
That was a close game and if Tait had played we might have won.( I know he batted great(26/111) with Warne in our first dig but he did little else. 0/5. 1 for 114 and 0 for 20.)

http://ls.cricket.com.au/HomeFullSco...8af517cb0.html

England should look back at this and learn.

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" You don't want the truth,you can't handle the truth."

the papers are full of Steve Harmison right now....Vic Marks thinks he will get the nod, as he has slightly more chance of bowling a match-changing spell than anderson or mahmood...othe rpapers suggest Flintoff is very disappointed in his great mate...the independent mentions that Fletch has never really been a big Harmy (or flintoff for that matter) fan anyway, and that Matty Hoggard is also less-than-chuffed with the way Steve is handling himself.

Personally I'd be inclined to give him another pop, as i dont see any of the other bowlers doing much better.

I agree, I would be inclined to give him another go IF we bring in Panesar to add strength to the bowling attack. I feel that if he gets it right he could still be a big threat, but as mentioned in another post if we play him then we need the other 3 seamers to fire.

I wonder about his fitness, is he fully fit or carrying an injury? I know he got slated for his performances in the SA tour but he was never more than 75% fit then. But, if he's not fully fit then why pick him for the tour?

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Mark.

Picking Harmison in case he fires in the next Test would be like tossing a coin to see if we win the Ashes. England have gone to Australia with Harmison as the spearhead to lead the bowling attack. He started off badly but there is no evidence that his bowling is improving. From one wicket in the first Test to no wickets in the second. In the warm up game as an opening bowler you expect him to get out opening batsmen of lesser quality than he would be facing in the Tests. He needs to get fired up and maybe dropping him for one Test might do that. He did get fired up when he didn't get a contract and after the Bangladesh tour when he was injured and there was talk of dropping him. Trained with the Newcastle FC and came back a new man in the West Indies. If it is a hard bouncy wicket he looks like a world class bowler, tell him it's flat and there is nothing in it and he bowls as if it is a job.

Imagine playing Harmison in all five matches and he doesn't improve. The series will end and leave all England fans wondering "what if Harmy had been dropped early in the series would the series result be different?" I'm in favour of dropping Harmison now so we aren't left wondering.

I've always been averse to dropping players because they ain't performing well and THEN looking for replacements: if someone is making an unanswerable case for inclusion, fine, but time and again England have dropped someone who is OK for someone who looks incapable of doing better... and that makes no sense at all!

Right now... I think Mahmood might be worth a gamble.... so fair enough... but let's face it: Harmison is not bowling any worse now than Mahmood did for 95% of last summer... and if the alternative is Plunkett... well, that would be exactly the daft sort of replacement I'm talking about above!

If they really dropped Harminson who would they replace him with? Mahmood? Well maybe not.

However Harminson may be a bit hit and miss of late but he is still a valuble player!

At the moment he's very valuable to the Aussies. As posted earlier, the only reason Harmison will play is because they know what he can do. And they're praying very hard that he will do it again.