The success of next year’s Ashes depends rather a lot on Harmison, and today was a case in point.
He led the attack, bowling a tight line to Hashim Amla and Jacques Kallis, both of whom were dismissed by him. James Anderson supported him well. So too did Stuart Broad. But where was Flintoff? He was enjoying a well-earned break from leading England’s attack in the slip cordon. Only at 12.20pm was he introduced into the attack and, having been battered by Harmison and to a lesser extent Anderson, Flintoff - less pressure on him owing to Harmison’s earlier bulldozing - did what he does best: add a big bottle of Lancastrian tobasco.
Flintoff has occasionally managed to be England’s best bowler and their most fearsome and feared while Harmison has bottled it. But England’s attack is so better balanced with a firing Harmison that everyone else just slots in. Anderson swings it as Matthew Hoggard used to. Broad is still in his infancy as a Test bowler, but the signs are promising.
Perhaps after all these years, it’s finally kicked in: he must bowl, bowl and bowl. Who knows? He could yet murder Australia next summer, and England will cling onto that hope - however forlorn it probably sounds to our Aussie readers. And I may well be, but one thing’s for certain: if Harmison is at his best next year, England will regain the Ashes.
He led the attack, bowling a tight line to Hashim Amla and Jacques Kallis, both of whom were dismissed by him. James Anderson supported him well. So too did Stuart Broad. But where was Flintoff? He was enjoying a well-earned break from leading England’s attack in the slip cordon. Only at 12.20pm was he introduced into the attack and, having been battered by Harmison and to a lesser extent Anderson, Flintoff - less pressure on him owing to Harmison’s earlier bulldozing - did what he does best: add a big bottle of Lancastrian tobasco.
Flintoff has occasionally managed to be England’s best bowler and their most fearsome and feared while Harmison has bottled it. But England’s attack is so better balanced with a firing Harmison that everyone else just slots in. Anderson swings it as Matthew Hoggard used to. Broad is still in his infancy as a Test bowler, but the signs are promising.
Perhaps after all these years, it’s finally kicked in: he must bowl, bowl and bowl. Who knows? He could yet murder Australia next summer, and England will cling onto that hope - however forlorn it probably sounds to our Aussie readers. And I may well be, but one thing’s for certain: if Harmison is at his best next year, England will regain the Ashes.
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