sledger
Spanish_Vicente
Since it's been pretty clear for quite some time now that he won't be playing for England ever again, I thought now might be a quite nice point to reflect on his career as an international fast bowler, and attempt to determine exactly what his level of ability was.
I don't regard Harmison as a particularly great bowler by any means, but I always rather liked him, and at occasion felt some sort of strange sympathy for him at the times when he was much maligned. I think by the end of his tenure in the England side, he had become a bit of a joke, but I do remember some great England moments where he would take a key wicket or on rare occasions put in a really devastating spell of bowling. However, having looked back at some videos on youtube of these spells which I remember to be particularly good, I noticed that a large proportion of the wickets that went down were largely due to a collection of incredibly poor shots (particularly the 6/19 against Pakistan in 2006).
I suppose what I am interested in is to see where people really rank Harmison amongst the leading pace bowlers of the last ten years or so. I think for me personally he'd rank in the top 50% (without really analysing anything and just off the top of my head), but the thought of him being ranked as the top bowler in the world back in 2004 (was it?) seems now to be incredibly generous, and surely this can never in fact have been the case.
I don't regard Harmison as a particularly great bowler by any means, but I always rather liked him, and at occasion felt some sort of strange sympathy for him at the times when he was much maligned. I think by the end of his tenure in the England side, he had become a bit of a joke, but I do remember some great England moments where he would take a key wicket or on rare occasions put in a really devastating spell of bowling. However, having looked back at some videos on youtube of these spells which I remember to be particularly good, I noticed that a large proportion of the wickets that went down were largely due to a collection of incredibly poor shots (particularly the 6/19 against Pakistan in 2006).
I suppose what I am interested in is to see where people really rank Harmison amongst the leading pace bowlers of the last ten years or so. I think for me personally he'd rank in the top 50% (without really analysing anything and just off the top of my head), but the thought of him being ranked as the top bowler in the world back in 2004 (was it?) seems now to be incredibly generous, and surely this can never in fact have been the case.