What a waste

Finally...how many chances did he want. I think he has become a bit like a useless lazy celebrity footballer who clings to the goal he scored to win a FA Cup a decade ago. The sad thing is he is still so young. I hope this is the kick up the backside he's been begging for for so long. Somewhere in there is a world beater, once the very best in the game, just waiting to get out. Dear Steve get into a gym, practice as hard as you can, take the county circuit by storm in a season or so. If cricket is still what you want...

The logic is simple. He isn't happy and he isn't doing well. Let him be, he can hand his cards in and do what makes him happy with his life. He has talent, physically, but mentally he's just not right for the job, and that's just as important. Wishful thinking won't change it. I have had the feeling that he's just doing it because he feels he ought to, not because he wants to. That's not going to work. So thanks Steve, when you were on you were the best. Let's forget about the rest of it. I hope you have a happy and fulfilling future.

English cricket has got to forget the Ashes glory of 2005, at least for a while. Its over - that team is never coming back again - and if does, it will no doubt fail miserably. Every tour since has started and ended with team management, fans and media lamenting the loss of "star" players to injury. They have never fully backed the playing eleven and it shows. If Harmison and Hoggard, and later this year Flintoff, are able to consistently demonstrate good form in domestic cricket, they should be considered for the team. Just because they were part of the winning team in 2005, is NOT a good reason for selection.

The slightest hint of success sends the english media and fans into hysterical over-reaction, as evidenced by the 2005 Ashes series. Perhaps harmison was just never as good as some people desperately wanted to believe he was, and hence his decline should not be the surprise it is to some. One thing is for certain, you cannot be a top class international sportsman and mentally fragile at the same time.

It's great when Harmison's bowling well, but the fact is that he's so inconsistent. Simon Jones and Andrew Flintoff have also been plagued by injuries. England should no longer place faith in guys whose fitness you're never sure about, no matter how good they might be in terms of ability. The England selectors' patience must be running thin with these players. They should definitely get more young blood into the team now, and maybe within a year they can put together a team that's ready for the Ashes. Broad, Anderson, Bopara, Owais Shah, Sajid Mahmood and even that young leggie from Yorkshire everyone's talking about.

Perhaps for too long he England team have been counting on players that at their peak have been magnificent but since the Ashes victory have been in somewhat of a decline. There has been too much focus on Flintoff coming back, too much focus on Harmy denigrating attacks when he bowls right and even ill thought of notions that Simon Jones might be back to add some venom to this attack. The team has got to move on and invest in its' next generation of bowlers, I am not sure that Anderson is one of them, but Stuart Broad certainly is. Ryan Sidebottom is there for a while now and he could be the talisman of the attack. If it is the end, thank you Harmison for the memories... :-)

i think that harmison has a good couple of years left in him, but maybe he hasn't had the preparation that he needs. and as for hoggard, what is moores thinking?! englands most reliable bowler for 18months gets dropped for ONE bad game. it beggars belief. stuart broad will be a good bowler for the future, it's time for him to show that he's good enough. i don't rate james anderson in tests personally, and in the ODI series he was terrible, with an average of 80 i think? i don't think anybody was particularly impressed. and i don't want to linger on this, but why is strauss still in the team. shah did nothing wrong. harmison just needs time.

Ever since Harmy and Jones made their debut against India, I have always felt that they had the talent to make their mark among the finest fast bowling pairs in cricket, ever. Cast an eye on the predicament of poor Simon Jones. Frustrated and dogged with injuries, none of his making, he would happily exchange an arm (his left) to be Harmy's position. Andrew, much as I agree with your comments here in general, on this one, I have to disagree. Harmy may carry the burden of one blessed with aplenty, but he also has a duty to perform for himself and for country. That, my friend, is his Karma.

i will never forget the 7 for 12 or the ashes ball to ponting, at that time & possibly even today, the best exponent of the pull shot in the world. we all know he has it in him, so what happens? why can't he get it right? without him, the english attack is toothless. wish they would have figured him out & sorted all his problems.

Miller's assertion that Harmison's achievements in 2004-5 haunted his later career, like 'spectres at the feast', reminded me of the ghosts of the past that haunt Hamlet in the eponymous play. Listening to Harmison interviewed during the first test at Hamilton was, indeed, like listening to the soliloquoy of an usurped Shakespearian tragic hero; a once powerful and proud man, reduced by the flaws in his character to a shadow of his former self, soon to be usurped by a cocksure, young successor - Stuart Broad. The signs suggest that Steve Harmison's international career is unlikely to be resurrected from its current resting place, so adopting an eulogistic tone my abiding memories of that career will be positive ones. Memories of that devestating spell in Kingston or the sound of ball on grill as that spitting bouncer struck Ricky Ponting rather than the sight of slumped shoulders and anxiety-filled eyes in the series that followed. The tragedy is 'that it should come to this!'.