Enough isn't enough

Stephen Harmison: the selectors weren't wrong not to give him a central contract © Getty Images

Anybody looking at the list of players placed on central contracts last month might have noticed that one man was missing. Steve Harmison certainly did, because he was that man. He wasn't pleased, either, letting it be known that he thought he had "done enough" to join his pals on the list. Yet, while it must be galling to see a young lad like James Anderson skip ahead of him, in this respect the selectors were not wrong.

If Harmison genuinely believes he did enough last summer to earn a full-time England contract, he is asking people to examine his record, so let's have a look, shall we? He took nine South African wickets, and each one cost 45 runs. Now, unless they interpret figures more indulgently in Durham than in other parts of the kingdom, that performance represents a very thin dish to set before a king. True, four of those wickets came at The Oval, when England stood a Test on its head and so gained a share of the series, but if Harmison really imagines that one effort in early September is `enough' to satisfy the examiners then somebody ought to take him to one side and give him a good talking-to.

It goes beyond Harmison, of course. The culture of mediocrity is so deeply ingrained in English cricket that players imagine they have done `enough' to win a county cap (which used to mean something), `enough' to earn another contract, `enough' to get a benefit, and, in some cases, `enough' to play for England, and, having played, to carry on playing. No wonder that too many modern players grow up with an air of entitlement, and get terribly cross when others decline to accept them at their own value.

The most notorious example of recent years was Usman Afzaal. Called in to join the England team playing the Australians in 2001, he made such a poor first impression that the tourists asked, to a man, `who is this chap?' They had never seen anybody summoned to wear the green and gold turning up for his first net with all the fashion accessories so dear to modern youth, and it amused them greatly to meet an Englishman with so high an opinion of his gifts. When he went on tour that winter, to India, the England players also found him to be surprisingly full of himself for one who had turned up no trees. The last we heard of Afzaal, he was looking for a new club after he parted company with Nottinghamshire. There is some talent there but not nearly as much as he imagines.

Now, compare these young Englishmen, so convinced of their merits, with the Australians. Stuart Law, who has been the best batsman in county cricket for half a dozen seasons, has won one Test cap. One! Michael Slater, with 14 Test centuries behind him, is considered de trop. There are plenty of others, as a look at the county batting averages will confirm. But you don't find them moaning about having done `enough' to win a contract with the ACB. Law, in fact, found himself dropped by Queensland last winter. There is an entirely different cricket `culture', for want of a better word, in Australia, and it doesn't seem to have done them much harm. It is a culture rooted in self-reliance and self-improvement, not hanging on for 10 years and then - `oh thanks ever so much' - passing the hat round.

Harmison, who comes across as a decent man in an uncomplicated way, has much to look forward to. He can bowl quickly, even if he does tend to bang the ball in too short too often, but if he is to fulfil the hopes that have been invested in him he would do well to button his lip, roll his sleeves up and start knocking over a few castles. People have been very kind to him, bearing in mind his modest record in county cricket. Come on now, how many games has he won for Durham? It is time he repaid his admirers in the only currency that will keep the creditors at bay - wickets.

Sometimes you wonder about the people who run our county clubs. Lancashire have just signed Dominic Cork, and already there is talk of winning the Championship that has eluded them, outright, since 1934. Cork will bring his swing bowling, his vigorous lower-order batting and his general busyness to Old Trafford, and may even tilt the odd game Lancashire's way. What his arrival will do for the development of the highly-regarded Kyle Hogg, nearly 12 years junior, is less easy to predict. Hogg missed most of last season with a mystery illness but people expect big things of him - if he gets the chance.