Terry Alderman was nicknamed ‘TMO’ on the 1989 Ashes tour because he seemed only to play in the Tests. Is Ryan Harris on his way to earning a similar label?
Daniel Brettig04-Oct-2011A certain amount of irony accompanied the unveiling of Australia’s new team uniforms for this summer. While the Test captain Michael Clarke and the Twenty20 leader Cameron White fitted the profile for their strips, conservative cream and bolshy black respectively, Ryan Harris made for a more wistful sight in the canary yellow of the touring ODI kit.Harris, despite a startling 41 ODI wickets at 16.12 in 17 matches, has not been selected for either of the most recent Australian limited-overs engagements, as the national selectors direct him towards the Test match duty that appears the best fit for his skiddy, swinging pace. He proved himself worthy of the commission with an outstanding shift in Sri Lanka, where his aptitude with the new ball was such that he can now be regarded as the Test team’s most valuable, if fragile, bowling commodity.A hamstring strain stopped Harris from playing in the third Test, but he has recovered soundly, and will make a domestic limited-overs appearance for Queensland before the Tests in South Africa next month. Whether or not Harris will ever again wear the uniform he modelled at a Sydney shopping centre on Tuesday is less clear.”I thought that when I put it on actually,” Harris said of his cloudy ODI future. “I’ll hopefully be wearing it again over the next summer, but we’ll let the selectors decide that. It’s just about the amount of cricket I’m going to play, hopefully once I get up and going and stay fit that’s going to be the time for them to seriously consider me I guess.”For now it is about getting right for South Africa and playing some good cricket over there again and getting myself staying fit. I had my first bowl yesterday and everything was good, I’d been running last week and that was fine, so everything is on track. I was pushing to play the opening rounds of state cricket, but the physio has held me back a bit just as a precaution. There’s a one-dayer before we go to South Africa for the Test tour, so hopefully I’m a part of that.”Sri Lanka was a most significant tour for Harris, but its gains will be fleeting if he cannot add to the fitness base he took to the subcontinent. Having built himself up slowly after an ankle fracture ended his Ashes series last summer, Harris’ conditioning is still short of where he would like it to be, as evidenced by the hamstring complaint.”For me it was a big thing because I hadn’t played much cricket,” Harris said. “I’d come off a couple of injuries. But for me to go over and bowl as well as I did, I surprised myself. They were on tougher, flatter wickets, so to go over to South Africa where conditions are going to be more suited to my sort of bowling, it is definitely going to be a major positive for me.”Definitely [they made the right call to not play third Test], I want to play every game I can so I’ve got to push to do that, but I need to listen to the people that know about injuries and that sort of stuff and how bad the injuries can get. It was right to miss that Test, and if I look at myself now by the time South Africa comes I’ll be 110% fit.”The balance Harris must strike between his training and management of a degenerative right knee problem is a delicate one, though his most recent visit to his Melbourne surgeon showed virtually no deterioration in the joint. He and Cricket Australia’s fitness and medical staff are presently working out how best to prepare Harris for the schedule ahead, as Australia are slated to play no fewer than 11 Test matches by the middle of 2012.”We’re just trying to work out what’s going to be the best,” Harris said. “I haven’t done a lot of running over 50 metres, so I’m lacking a little bit of conditioning in my legs. I’ve got a good base over in Sri Lanka, I didn’t bowl a lot of overs but enough to get myself feeing good, and I’ve been doing a little bit of running last week which has kept that base and improved on that.”I’ll chuck some bowling in this week and next week and it’s going to improve again. I’ve just got to do the shorter stuff I need to get some miles in my legs to get myself stronger, which I’ll do, and come out feeling a lot more confident about it.”I don’t want to rest, I’ve made that pretty clear, I want to play every Test I can. I feel as though, once I get some games of cricket under my belt again I’ll feel stronger and more confident that I’ll be able to stay fit at the top level. I don’t want to be missing cricket, I’m 32 in a couple of days, so I want to be playing as much as I can.”Michael Clarke and others have spoken about the building of a strong Australian squad, with bowlers capable of stepping up as required, but Harris is not a believer in the concept of rotating bowlers for Test matches. Irrespective of his physical condition, Harris wants to play whenever the opportunity arises.”If I’m asked to sit out a game I’m disappointed,” he said. “Rhythm for me is huge, when I’m going I just like to keep bowling and bowling. If the selectors say we have to sit out, we have to sit out. I don’t feel as though being rotated will help me, but if that’s what they say, that’s what I’ll do.”I don’t think it [rotation] is a great thing. In one-day cricket maybe, there’s a lot of one-day cricket, but rotation in Test cricket is not great, that’s just my opinion. I’ll play no matter what, it is probably them sometimes stepping in to say it is probably best that I rest. But I find it hard to stop-start, stop-start, I want to play, keeping playing and get my rhythm going.”With that that at the moment get some confidence in my body and know I can play back-to-back or three or four games in a row, rather than playing two, missing two and getting back again and working back up to that level. That’s something I’ve spoken to the medical staff about. They’re confident if I can get up and going and put some games together, they’re confident I can get through.”The issue of management is a happier one given that presently the Australian attack looks in fine fettle, having accomplished a difficult task with honours in Sri Lanka. Harris has played in South Africa before, during the 2009 Indian Premier League, and reckons the full length he and his team-mates pursued on the subcontinent can meet with even richer rewards on grassier surfaces.”We bowled reasonably full in Sri Lanka and it’s probably going to be something similar I reckon,” Harris said. “You want to be trying to get those bowleds and lbws, so bowling short of a length, you get balls going over the top and you’re sort of bowling for the nicks.”Thinking about it I’m pretty sure the lengths are going to be pretty similar to what we bowled in Sri Lanka, and hopefully we get the nicks but also the bowleds and the lbws. They’re different wickets so we’ve got to make fine adjustments to what we’re doing. But as a bowling unit over in Sri Lanka we spoke a lot and we gelled. We had a great partnership happening.”Trent [Copeland] came in and did his bit on those wickets and bowled very well. If you look at the way he bowls, to get a bit of grass onto the wickets in South Africa he’s going to be even harder [to face]. There’s going to be minor adjustments, but I’m confident as a group that we can make those adjustments and be as successful.”
