Chancing Their Harm
Harmison - very last chance.
Bob Willis says the England selectors are right to recall Steve Harmison, but this has to be his last chance.
So Steve Harmison is back in the England squad.
He had a ropey old time in New Zealand, but he has done exactly what the selectors wanted him to do and gone back to his county and taken a load of wickets.
He has bowled with good rhythm and he has bowled fast and deserves his recall.
I know my Sky Sports colleague Michael Atherton has questioned the decision, suggesting he has had one chance too many, but I think the crunch time for Harmison will actually come in September.
That's when the ECB will announce their new central contracts but until then, both he and Matthew Hoggard for that matter, are under contract and being paid a lot of money, so the England selectors are well within their rights to pick from within that contracted pool of players.
But I do think they have fudged the issue again by naming 13 players for Edgbaston, leaving the decision until the morning of the Test match again.
I'm not sure that does anyone's confidence a lot of good, although maybe it will soften the blow slightly for Stuart Broad when they leave him out.
England also need to decide if they want four or five bowlers. I think we need six batsmen, which means the four, but it's going to be very tough choosing three seamers from five.
I think Harmison has to play, although it might be they fear another slow pudding of a pitch; Ryan Sidebottom has to come back in now he's fit; James Anderson has been bowling beautifully; Andrew Flintoff is just back in the side.
It looks like Broad will miss out although personally I would actually stick with him because as the finished article, in 12 months' time against Australia, he would be a very exciting prospect. He is a proper batsman coming in at eight, which is very important but the reality is right now, his wickets have dried up.
It does seem strange they are talking about resting him when he's just had nine days off and these England players are pretty well looked after. I suppose burn-out and then rotation will come into the equation if Twenty20 cricket is going to be slotted into every available gap in the programme.
Whatever happens to Broad, all eyes will be on Harmison. He never strikes you as the strongest mentally and some of his recent comments have backed that up and generally he's fine as long as he's in touching distance of Ashington.
But when he goes abroad there seems to be a real dip in his performance. It will be intriguing to see, if picked, he can get over that.
And it may even be that he goes to India in the winter, because England are only out there for two Tests just before Christmas, and that might not bother him.
After that it's the West Indies, who he should have happy memories of bowling against. We might just see a much happier bunny, even away from home.
So far he has been totally listless on tours, and this must be his very last of last chances.
England do need something different though which is why I expect to see him in the XI. Their attack was toothless in the last Test.
They were in the field for virtually three of the four days at Headingley and without Sidebottom they lacked someone who can swing the ball, both orthodox and reverse, which is why Simon Jones will quickly come back into the equation.
Darren Pattinson won't though, which underlines what a very poor selection he was. I felt sorry for him because he should never have been picked in the first place - I had four or five cabs on the rank in front of him, like Chris Tremlett, like Jones, like Hoggard and like Harmison.
There will have been the temptation to name him in the 13 again just to soften the blow, but then again, I still wonder if those selectors even know who's picking this team.