Harmison 'desperate' to play Ashes

Steve Harmison, the England fast bowler, has said he is desperate to play in the remaining Ashes Tests as he has "unfinished business" with the Australians. Harmison was left out of the Ashes preliminary squad but was named as a cover for Andrew Flintoff in an expanded second Test squad. However he did not feature in the XIs at Lord's or Edgbaston.

"The truth is that, much as I love playing for Durham, I'm desperate to play against Australia,' Harmison was quoted as saying in the Mail on Sunday. "You can't overestimate how desperate. I'd have given everything to have played at Lord's, to be playing now in Birmingham and to play in Leeds."

Harmison took 6 for 20 as Durham beat Nottinghamshire by an innings and 102 runs last month and said the way he was bowling at the moment, he would be a handful against any opposition.

"I'll never forget winning in 2005 but I don't want my last Ashes memory to be of 2006-07, neither for that first ball, nor the whole experience of losing 5-0. It took us 20 years to win the Ashes back in 2005 - and just 18 months to lose them. I'd like to think I could be part of winning them back."

Harmison denied rumors that he planned to retire at the end of the summer and was looking at the remaining Ashes Tests as a chance to get a farewell. "It may be that England do not see a future for me beyond the end of this summer. If that is the case, there is nothing I can do about it. But I'm not going to tell them I'm not available. It will be their decision if I don't play for England again, not mine. I would like to get some idea of their thinking.

"Before the Oval Test I would like to sit down with Andrew Strauss and Andy Flower and ask them for their honest thoughts. If it turns out I've got nowhere to go other than walking away, if they say, 'At the end of the Ashes, we're going to go in a different direction to plan for a couple of years' time', then fair enough."

Harmison said he did not see himself in England's one-day plans for the future despite being named in the 30-man probables for the Champions Trophy. "But if they turn round to me and say, 'Because Fred's gone, we're keen on you going to South Africa to play Test matches because of the option you give us once Fred's not there', then I'll make every possible effort to go to South Africa six weeks before." Harmison said he would then consider playing for a South African franchise before England's tour to the country.

"I think they will have to drag Fred away from Leeds by his hair to stop him playing at Headingley, but in the event that he or they are unhappy with his knee I feel the firepower I bring to the table gives them a solid option.

"Andy Flower [England coach] said to me the other day, 'We would never draw a line under you'. My response to that was, 'I would never let you draw a line under me'. Until I felt it was right for them and for me, I would never voluntarily let him, the captain or the ECB draw a line under my name."