As we are all aware Steve Harmison has retired from One day cricket.


I agree with him 100% - his poor form started in South Africa, and for some reason Vaughan and Fletcher made Harmison stay on for the ODI's, despite his obvious wish to return to England.

Is he right - can we expect an upturn in his Test performances?, will concentrating on Test cricket make him sharper for Test cricket?.

Should Flintoff do the same?, with his recent ankle problems would Flintoff be better going down the same road as Harmison?.

If Harmison goes back to his best - if it is shown that abandoning one day cricket has helped him focus on Test cricket with possitive results.

Will other big names follow in his footsteps?, or do players thive on a punishing workload?.

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Ern

I don't think his retirement will ake much difference to be honest. The guy is mentally flawed. If he had the mentallity of say, a Bob Willis or Jeff Thompson, he would be deadly and go down as one of the greats.

He's a shrinking violet is'nt he? I'm glad he is not an Aussie.

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The thought police are everywhere..............

I agree Seamer,my own personal opinion is he will get dropped from the test side next summer as he isn't performing and hasn't done for ages.

This does f*ck me off though! He's been not enjoying his ODI cricket for ages, and has been a pretty pants bowler also, yet Dunc has dragged him around the world, away from home playing when he doesn't want to. I'm sure this has ben detrimental to his test form.

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I'll have the Mouseburger please, with a side of Goldfish.

Ernest should Flintoff look at retiring from one day cricket, or maybe test cricket and concentrating on one day cricket.
In my mind he is a bowling allrounder who is a pretty good slogger/batsmen. I think he is built more for the one day game than the 5 day game.
Another alternative and one I hope Australian cricket start considering with a few players is rather than retiring from either tests or one dayers, is letting players drop out of some of the lesser or not so lesser series. Not everyone together it would have to be rostered, but in our case the likes of Gilchrist and Ponting could alternate if confronted with series against say Kenya and Bangladesh.
Why not let Flintoff drop some of the lesser series over the coming years.

That's a much better proposal. Squad rotation will become increasingly important in the next few years.

My suggestion over a year ago was to retire Pollock form the Test side and keep him in the ODI side for the World Cup.
Harmison has proved to be poor. Since his WI tour a few years ago he really has only bowled well in patches. Maybe removing him from the one dayers will improve him but I can't see the point it should of been done earlier. England have been on a mission since 2005 to be number 1 in the world now that has fallen apart. So it would of made sense to remove Harmison back than not now.

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