Harmison harmony hangs in balance

Steve Harmison is a rhythm bowler. And, although Ponting was polite enough not to say so, when the rhythm disappears, the melody and the harmony tend to go with it. Harmison began this Test series with a ball so disastrous that it has already gone down in Ashes history; last week the sheer ordinariness of his final spell in Adelaide, at a time when England needed an all-out effort, appeared to exhaust the patience of Andrew Flintoff, his captain and friend.

In The Guardian, Richard Williams looks back to Harmison's last Test outing at Perth when he again lost it.

Harmison himself is unlikely to need reminding that it was here in Perth, in his first Ashes series four years ago, that he lost his rhythm in the biggest possible way. There were nine runs off his first over, four byes in his second, Matthew Hayden pulled the last ball of the third into the hands of Alex Tudor, Ponting hooked him for six in the fourth and at the close of the opening day Harmison had bowled eight overs and taken one for 27. It had been an eventful spell but gave no hint of what would follow the next morning ...

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