WE MEET STEVE HARMISON!
By Sam Pilger
Harmy explains his Ashes nightmare and why he didn't even watch the World Cup... and you get the chance to win a copy of his and Alfie Langer's Ashes diary!
• This is a shorter version of a piece that appeared in the May issue of SPIN magazine. For subscriptions and details of the June issue, see www.spincricket.com
• To stand a chance of winning one of four signed copies of Harmy and Alfie Langer's Ashes book, write to [email protected] and tell us: how old is Tinker Harmison?
From the England team hotel, in the centre of Sydney, Steve Harmison was just a stroll from the city’s harbour. The sun was shining, his wife Hayley and three daughters were with him, and crucially, for the first time in months, there was no more cricket.
It was January 2007. The Ashes had just finished, and after his recently announced retirement, he was no longer a part of the one-day squad. At that moment, Harmison was free. He could enjoy a week’s holiday before heading home.
But he didn’t feel free. Instead the events of the previous six weeks took their hold on a humiliated Harmison - and he found it difficult to even leave his hotel room.
“It was the worst week of my life,” he recalls. “The realisation of losing the Ashes really hit me. I had never felt like that. It was like I was in my own bubble. If anyone had seen how upset I was during those days they would never doubt how much I care about playing for England.”
“I really didn’t want to leave my room, even though I could have had a nice time with my family, but I wasn’t in the mood. I just couldn’t get rid of this crushing disappointment. It just all came down on me and I couldn’t move or think properly.”
Harmison had arrived in Australia a little over two months earlier as an Ashes hero and England’s most feared bowler. Retaining the urn in Australia for the first time in 20 years would be difficult, but, after the summer of 2005, Harmison and his team-mates spoke about the Australians having lost their air of invincibility and how they could triumph once again.
In the build-up to the series, Harmison says, there were no hints about what lay ahead. “I was very confident about the challenge,” he says.
On the opening morning of the first Ashes Test in Brisbane Harmison admits to some nerves, but he was also excited about the series. When Andrew Flintoff threw him the ball to bowl the first delivery of the series, he says, “I felt ready to do my best.”
Approaching the wicket, however, Harmison was suddenly gripped by fear, the ball felt uncomfortable in his hand and when he let go of it he watched in horror as it flew hideously wide of Justin Langer and landed in Flintoff’s hands at second slip. Harmison’s game had imploded and his ordeal had only just begun.
“All of a sudden, I felt very different, it all descended on me after that ball,” admits Harmison. “It really took its toll and my emotions changed completely from ‘Let’s get at them’ to ‘F**k me, I can’t let go of the ball properly.’”
As Harmison walked back to his mark to bowl his second ball his heart began to race, his palms began to sweat and he felt himself shaking gently. “My body was taken over by nerves and tension, I clammed up. I had never felt like that on a cricket pitch before. The ball felt big, like something that didn’t want to come out of my hand.”
The second ball went down the leg-side and after only two overs Harmison was withdrawn from the attack. “My mind was empty, I didn’t have the answers, the whole Test match was a blur. I kept saying to myself, ‘Calm down, calm down’ but if anything it got worse.
“I can remember my team-mates speaking to me, but I didn’t hear what they were saying. I couldn’t take it in. Duncan Fletcher tried speaking to me during the breaks, but it was no good. There was no point – I couldn’t help myself. I felt isolated, I was alone. I sat in my corner of the dressing room feeling numb. I couldn’t see or feel anything, so I couldn’t help myself. I had nowhere to go.”
So why had it happened? “I don’t know,” he says. “That first ball was the reason I got so bad, but I don’t know why that happened. I just got worse and I don’t think I calmed down until we got to Adelaide.”
But Harmison fared no better in the second Test in Adelaide. He failed to take a wicket, as England slumped to that dramatic final day defeat which saw them go 2-0 in the series. In the third Test, in Perth, he rallied with figures of 4-48 in the first innings, but that was as good as it got and he finished the series with a mere 10 wickets at an average of 61.4 as England were whitewashed 5/0.
“From that first ball, I hated the game, I hated what I was doing because I wasn’t doing it very well. Arriving at the ground each morning for the rest of series was difficult, I wasn’t enjoying it. I kept coming when I could easily have pulled out… Whatever you do, there are days when you don’t like your job, and you think, ‘F**king hell, I wish I was doing something else.’”
In Ashes Frontline, the diary of the series Harmison wrote with Justin Langer, he says he wants to learn from the experience of England’s 5/0 defeat. Three months later, I ask him what he learned? “As a player I learned…” he says before quickly tailing off. He gropes for an answer before offering a safer, collective response. “The biggest thing is we’ve learned as a group to seize moments that are presented to us,” he says. He adds that he knows that he has to learn from the experience, “but it’s difficult to describe how”.
In the past, Harmison has been affected by homesickness on tour. Before the series in South Africa in 2004, on the day of England’s departure he said, “Today is the day I wish I wasn’t a professional cricketer… I wish I worked in an office in a nine-to-five job.”
At times, did he feel the same in Australia? “No, not at all because I no longer get homesick,” he says. “I have only had problems on that tour to South Africa, and since then I have been to India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. I don’t know how, but something happened and my homesickness disappeared.”
Harmison’s attitude towards the game was questioned routinely as the series progressed. “I was made a scapegoat and it annoyed me that people who have played the game did that to me,” he says.
This was fuelled not just by his performances in the Ashes, but by a television interview he gave to Michael Atherton during the final Test in Sydney. Asked what his plans were now as he headed back to England he responded he didn’t know and would have to ask the England coach Duncan Fletcher.
During the series, Vic Marks wrote in The Observer that “For [Harmison] cricket seems to be a job rather than a passion”, while in The Daily Telegraph Simon Hughes said: “Perhaps the way forward is to lower our expectations of him, to forget about his demolition of West Indies and his temporary status as the No 1 bowler in the world, and consider him instead as an honest trier capable of the odd dramatic performance.”
Does Harmison recognise himself in either of those comments? “I don’t accept that cricket is just my job. I am passionate about what I do. Also, I try my hardest for England. I don’t really care what others expect from me. It is what my team-mates want, and I don’t mind if it is to take five wickets to win a game, or if it is to take two wickets and bowl for someone at the other end. I am not a selfish player; I am not the sort of person who wants to win a game on my own. Nor am I going to try to please the media, because this winter it seemed to all be about who could write the most controversial thing.”
Harmy decided to retire from ODIs after last October's Champions Trophy, but only announced the decision after the Ashes. Did he miss being a part of England’s success in the Commonwealth Bank series after such a relentlessly miserable tour? “No, not at all,” he says. “I have no regrets and I don’t miss playing one-day cricket. The only place I would have wanted to be was on the balcony or in the pub celebrating because I have had my day on the field. I’ve had my go, it’s someone else’s turn. I don’t want to be one of those jealous ex-cricketers who have a go at people all the time.”
Did he watch any of England’s World Cup games? “To be honest, I haven’t watched a great deal.”
On the flight home from Australia in January, Harmison says he still felt sick, but since arriving home he has begun to feel better about himself. “I picked up a ball without any dread for the first time in the nets in early February,” he says. “I do really enjoy the game and it is up to me now to show people I can play with a smile on my face. If I play well, no-one in English cricket can match me. I’m as good as anybody when it comes to the art of fast bowling. No-one in the country can bowl as quick as I can.”
But just as he has this display of bravado and confidence, he quickly retreats and instead shows the insecurity the England captain Michael Vaughan says he is prone to when I ask if he can become the No 1 bowler in the world again, a title he held after taking 67 wickets during 2004.
“A lot of people have talked about that, but Murali, Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath were all injured then, and I managed to jump over them,” he says. “I don’t want that to sound like a defeatist attitude, but my aim is to be in the top five rankings, especially now with Warne and McGrath out of the game. To be consistently in the top ten in the world means I would be bowling well, and if I was to get to No 1 again that would be great. It will be tough, but I am not in this game for personal gain.”
So what does the future hold for Harmison? “I would be surprised if Steve plays past his 30th birthday, said Michael Vaughan 18 months ago. “He will continue long enough to earn what he needs to keep himself and his family for the rest of his life. He’ll get to a level when he thinks: OK, that’s enough for me.”
If this is true, it would mean Harmison, who is now 28, would retire at the end of next summer. However, Harmison assures me that Vaughan, on this occasion, is not being serious. “That is him having a joke,” says Harmison with a smile. “That is one of his big things, he keeps saying to me, ‘I’m surprised you’re still playing.’ Because he knows I’m a laidback character. As soon as I saw what he had written I asked him about it and he admitted he was taking the piss because he knows I’m a family man who doesn’t like leaving the North East.”
So what is the truth? Could Harmison go on for as long as Glenn McGrath, who is bowing out after the World Cup at 37? “I can’t see that, but it depends on my body. I’ve had a few injuries. I can’t see me getting to 35, to be honest. I can’t believe McGrath: he’s amazing, but I won’t be following him. Because of the amount of cricket being played these days, fast bowlers are starting to fall to bits before they reach 30. Look at what’s happened to Shoaib. That’s why I have retired from one-day cricket because I want to play Test cricket until I am at least 33.”
“Before I retire I want to play in the 2009 Ashes series and then go back to Australia for the 2010/11 series. I want my body to get me there. If it does, great. If it doesn’t, I have had a great career.”
For the moment, Harmison is simply hoping to be selected for the first Test against the West Indies at Lord’s. “I feel good, I feel ready,” he says. “I am looking forward to getting in to the season. There are three championship games for Durham at the start of the season and then I should be ready for the Windies. I am excited about playing cricket again.”
As he starts what he hopes is a long season of Test cricket – with his reputation damaged by his Ashes experience – is Harmison confident he has found a way to deal with the pressure that so overwhelmed him in Brisbane?
“I think, um, well… obviously you learn from your mistakes and hopefully I can learn from that.”
You have to hope, for his sake and for England’s, that he is more confident he can bounce straight back this summer than he sounds.
Ashes Frontline by Steve Harmison and Justin Langer is published by Green Umbrella, at £12.99. Profits go to the Bubble Foundation: bubblefoundation.org.uk.
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