Injuries force Ryan Harris' immediate retirement

Big shame for one of the gentlemen of the game! Especially to put all the work in to try and get back and have it all be for nothing. Hopefully the surgery can be very successful and his knees will be good enough for him to still run around with his kids and stuff like that!

Combine that with the fact that Australia have the best tail in world cricket, and probably one of the best tails all-time in world cricket, who continue to pile on late order runs so that with Australia 5-6 down it can still be a very long way from the end of the innings, while there are plenty of 5-out all-out teams around!

I suppose it's a "career obituary"!

Agreed! That was one thing he mentioned in things I've seen today, that he still wants to be able to run around with his kids as he gets older and doesn't want to risk pushing to get back, and doing permanent damage on what may be a fruitless attempt anyway. (Since by then he'd be 36, there's no guarantee he'd be able to return to his best, and guys like Starc, Cummins and Pattinson will probably be approaching their peaks!)

Cummins is a quality fast bowler, with pace and bounce and the ability to swing the ball both ways. That and he bears a striking resemblance to Superman! It's not hard to see what the selectors see in him. However, pulling him out of a tour where he was going to play some first class cricket to possibly play no cricket during the Ashes series seems counter productive. Unless they are planning on guaranteeing he'll play in the two 3-day tour matches remaining during the test series and consider that with only 2 first class matches on the Australia A tour, that he'll get a similar amount of cricket anyway.

I do believe it's probably hard to really know as it's not the sort of thing that would be easy to produce any sort of accurate statistics on. My belief is that overly restricting teenagers bowling then means a big shock when they suddenly go unrestricted and play first class cricket and the amount of bowling suddenly jumps up. The big problem being a sudden increase in workload. However, the measures were brought in because CA clearly felt there were too many cases of teenage fast bowlers breaking down with injury and they wanted to do something about it. Possibly, back in the old days, bowlers bowled lots and lots, and those who's actions put too much stress on the back just broke down and never went anywhere, and those who didn't were the ones who made it. While as now, bowlers are being managed enough so that bowlers with actions that produce good pace but overly stress the back (and other parts of the body) manage to get through the teenage years and start breaking down in their late teens / early 20's as the workload increases. So maybe the answer isn't the reduce the bowling by the teenage fast bowlers, but to try to get to them earlier with coaching to adjust actions in ways now known to be better in protecting the back from injury. Fix the actions and then get them bowling lots!

Lillee had to work things out for himself in a lot of ways because the knowledge and support staff simply weren't there. In a lot of ways the way he worked his way back from his back injury, including adjustments to his action to put less stress on his back became the model that has been used for bowlers like this since then. Pattinson has been out for ages because not only was he overcoming the back injury, but actually remodelling his action in a way to put less stress on his back. And Pattinson and Cummins are still the younger generation, I don't see many people about to go past them.

Pattinson and Cummins are guys that are quite rightly seen by CA as the future of the Australian fast bowling attack and getting injuries young they do everything they can to make sure those injuries don't turn into something more major by pushing through them too much. There are some times where playing a bit hurt actually just helps the body to push through it and get stronger, and other times when it can turn a 6 week injury layoff into a 2 year injury layoff, or a 12-18 month injury lay-off into a potentially career threatening one. On the other hand you have someone like Harris who is well into his mid-30's and struggling with injuries for ages and there is much less of a long-term career focus, just trying to get every game he can. So therefore at that stage of his career he's likely to play through injuries that you'd never risk a 21 year old playing through. Cummins and Pattinson are simply doing what they are told as far as how they are managing injuries and the like. You can hardly criticise them for that!

The wussiness is in the blood.

Correct CT, you have your wires crossed Don, James Pattinson was born in Melbourne, Vic, Australia, Darren was born in the UK.

Is that England's inability to knock over the tail? Agreed, they aren't good at it. That's why I'm particularly keen to see Rashid play, he's somewhat of an expert at mopping up the tail.

'Starc and his ability to clean up lower order batsmen still worries me as an England fan, but I think it’s going to be an absorbing contest.' and your inability to knock over a tail over.

Congrats Ryno on a great career, sad that its over, having said that on the upside at least Starc and Hazlewood will be able to play the first test without the pressure that if they don't perform well they will automatically be replaced by harris.

As an Australian I would be very happy with the English press and fans calling them favourites. Sort of like the last time around really.....

I haven't seen the footage from Essex, could you let me know how you achieved your secret supply line of footage by the way King Kong, but the consensus in the uk media is that starc was wayward and bowled poor spells mixed in with good ones taking wickets in clusters. Let us not forget this was for the most part a mixture of first and second team players, not a full strength second division Essex side. On the whole i would be worried if I was Australian this is not a good performance no matter how it get spun...and with Harris now retired.....I now think England are slight favourites considering home advantage and Lyons shoddy form

Thanks for the reminder King Kong, see you've been watching those tapes again......indeed my mistake I got carried away with the maulings all the Aussie bowlers took, and extrapolated. Good thing you have stats guru to help us keep track. Are you not worried with Harris retirement...I will point out that you had been adamant in your suggestions he would come into the series stronger, based on past examples, and be the Aussies most important bowler.

Nice pickup. Reid had a higher average yet a lower ER which reflects the fact that he was bowled into the ground by AB.

Shows how brave he was in South Africa in 2014!

Yeah Ryano has poor Bruce covered with the bat. Harris 603 runs at 21.53 with 3 fifties Reid 93 runs at 4.65. The other similarity is both played for Australia when the side went through a transitional phase. Reid played after Lillee, G.Chappell and R.Marsh retired. While Harris made his test debut after Warne, Gilly, McGrath, Langer all departed.

That's spooky close (such similar bodies too!!!). I suspect Rhyno had Bruce covered with the bat.