Now SiJo calls it a day too ....

He might still be available for T20 knockabouts, but that doesn't count.

So (effectively) farewell also to the feisty Welsh muscleman whose swooping skiddy action and ever-combative attitude got the famed Aus batsmen into so much dither and bother in 2005.


Is Harmi officially retired yet, or just permacrocked? All the rest of the Quadriga Pack of eight years ago will very soon have left the stage.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/24067488

Credit for him for carrying on in county cricket when it would have been easy for him to call it a day some time ago. One of those who could have been something really special but we'll never know, he gave us that brief glorious spell though.

Sounds like Harmison is likely to officially retire at the end of the season, so who does that leave still playing from that '05 side? Just KP and Bell at Test level, Trescothick and Geraint Jones in the county game. And Colly if he counts!

What could've been, only for injury. To this day I reckon he was the difference in the mighty 05 Ashes series. Well played SiJo.

go on , you farquen weak dog

skully wrote:What could've been, only for injury. To this day I reckon he was the difference in the mighty 05 Ashes series. Well played SiJo.

His legend is built on two and a half Tests. He was ordinary in the first Test of the series, and couldn't bowl due to injury in the second innings of the fourth Test - and never played for England again.

A real shame. He had so much promise: moved the ball all over the show at quite a lick. But his body was never up to it. Even before his terrible knee injury in Brisbane, he'd spent much of his career on the slab. He tore a side muscle in his first over of international cricket, trying to bowl too fast.

Start as you mean to go on...

A good (vital) two and a half Tests to build a legend on, though ...

And this moment is pretty memorable (3rd Test), even if the Aussies hung on in the end





Also, this bit of argy-bargy (the third ODI, Edgbaston, in late June) set up the later Test combat nicely!

He only ever managed 17 FC games after that injury in 2005. Its a shame he didn't manage to play one more Test as a reward for all his time in rehab - he made a brief comeback in 2008 and I think would have played instead of Pattinson if he hadn't picked up a strain the week before that game.

His FC record since 2005:

2006 - 1 wkt @ 96
2007 - 1 wkt @ 290
2008 - 42 wkts @ 18.02
2010 - 4 wkts @ 15.00
2011 - 1 wkt @ 65
2012 - 2 wkts @ 35

I saw quite a bit of him in 2008 and he was very nearly back to his best. It wasn't to last sadly.

Simon Jones is a legend. 2005 Ashes is in my greatest sporting moments. Such a shame that injuries spoilt his career.

gutsy to have even attempted one comeback after that horror injury

He talks a good game, he was particularly candid on the Cricket AM show over here - although in his mumbly Taff way. I'm wondering if he'll go the way of coaching.

Brass Monkey wrote:He talks a good game, he was particularly candid on the Cricket AM show over here - although in his mumbly Taff way. I'm wondering if he'll go the way of coaching.

Not if he has a mumbly Taff way of delivering the message!

A good servant to Galmmers and England.
Brisbanes horror show still evokes shudders down my spine . .
Wish him well . . he can still deliver in T20.

Yeah, hopefully some teams will pick him up - deserves a bit of extra cash. He's actually quite useful at T20

Someone may pick him up, not Glam tho ... he's a goner.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/county-cricket-2014/content/story/683473.html

Bet he wanted a wedge. Can be the only reason. He'll have to go to Slurreyhamshire.

I genuinely liked this guy, hoped that he would have a longer career. Nice blokes are hard to find in English cricket. Something about him felt as if he was not a 'born snob with a racist tinge' and not 'one who had a tendency to look down upon everything else and everyone else' as most cricketers representing ECB in international competitive cricket usually turn out to be.

buckSH wrote:I genuinely liked this guy, hoped that he would have a longer career. Something about him felt as if he was not a 'born snob with a racist tinge' and not 'one who had a tendency to look down upon everything else and everyone else'

Well, they do say that opposites attract.

good one .. mind you the intent is not generalizing an entire people, Britain of today is much more about fairer values and egalitarianism than even before in past .. but as a result people also lost focus because some groups need support of their 'beef & potatoes' of core values to motivate themselves, a kind of red-neckian instinct that sees you through times, which in the case of Brits and Anglos used to be condescension & derision of other groups esp non-white. You can see that some Brits seem hopelessly lost and make little sense when they are put in a situation of zero-discrimination as that practiced in USA.

For a white guy coming out of Europe or British Isles, it is really pretty difficult to ignore the subtle racist messages aired by BBC, daily rags and ignoring them means that people go to other extreme of extremely unhinged. It isn't easy to make a break with past karma, it is going to pull you down in any which way it can. But sometimes a genius can always come along and show light to an entire nation. Like Shane Warne. Or Brett Lee. Not a single racist bone in those two.

Christ, you don't half hemmorage crap in your posts.

aye merls...at least I keep my departures nicely capped in hygienic bags

horace wrote:aye merls...at least I keep my departures nicely capped in hygienic bags

That's not what your nurses say.

Merlin wrote:Christ, you don't half hemmorage crap in your posts.

then wake up & smell the coffee half hemmorage dropping tory. But as they say ..

the lord hardens the hearts of whom he seeks to destroy.

Romans 9:18

Point proven.

both merls and taips are classic old etonian nobs

these days who gives a sh!t half hemmorage dropping.