Wisden overview
County batsmen had been painfully aware of Steve Harmison's capacity for jamming fingers against bat-handles for some time before he finally made it into the England side in mid-2002, after an injury to another tearaway, Simon Jones. Harmison, who was born in Ashington – the Northumberland village where the footballing Charlton brothers first saw the light of day – was barely 20 when he went with England A to South Africa in 1998-99, but after that he was held back by a series of niggling injuries – including somehow dislocating his shoulder when he caught his hand in his trouser pocket while bowling – and a tendency to fall homesick when confined to barracks on overseas tours. But the basic pace is still there, and if Harmison can stay injury-free he should have an interesting battle with Jones over the next few years for the glamorous Goughish role of England's pace spearhead. He had one magical spell in the 2002-03 Melbourne Test, when he ripped out Ricky Ponting and Damien Martyn, and roughed up Steve Waugh, but was nonetheless a rather surprising inclusion in England's 2003 World Cup squad - he hadn't played much one-day cricket for Durham - and worries about his radar resurfaced with a series of wides and no-balls in the preceding VB Series in Australia. He duly played no part in the World Cup itself, but retained his place in the Test side when Zimbabwe came a-calling in 2003. Steven Lynch

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