Thursday marks the 20th anniversary of West Indies' lowest-ever Test total, 47 all out against England at Sabina Park, Jamaica. Steve Harmison ran through them, returning career-best figures of 7 for 12, and announcing himself as a world-class fast bowler.

Harmison remembers the short journey from Dhaka to Chittagong in October 2003 that prompted a fresh wave of innuendo about his commitment. The day after England's first Test in Bangladesh, in which he took 9 for 79 in 46.5 overs and won the match award, Harmison squeezed his 6ft 5in frame into the front row of a domestic flight.

"I'm six stone heavier now than when I was playing," Harmison says with a grin. "I really struggled getting on and off playing. I wasn't the strongest: I was very gangly, very flimsy. Me and Ashley Giles had row one on the plane, and we got crammed in. Honestly, some of the stuff made me think, 'These f***ers are winding me up.'

"It was like, if you couldn't get your bags in the overhead lockers, you just rammed them down the side of our legs. We were crumpled on this plane and by the time I got to Chittagong, I couldn't stand up straight. I missed the Test with a bad back. The medical team classed it as growing pains, but by then I was obviously a fully grown man."

Play 03:54

Harmison: 'I don't think they realised England had a fast-bowling unit that was going to take on the world'

Harmison flew home, and missed England's subsequent tour of Sri Lanka. It allowed him a rare opportunity to spend time at home with his wife, Hayley, and their two young daughters, at a time when he was struggling with his own mental health. But his withdrawal furthered his reputation as a reluctant tourist, and he was affronted by the criticism that he attracted.

"I never really cared what other people said about me, and I think that's why I had the career I did," he says. "I was never obsessed with playing cricket and never thought the world would end if I didn't play for England. I had mental health issues, I struggled being away from home, and I thought, 'Well, I'll fall back on playing for Durham and I'll provide for my family.'"

But one article in the Telegraph, by the former England seamer Derek Pringle, questioning his commitment, cut Harmison deep. "That really upset me, because it had come from a former cricketer. I'd heard it had come from him talking to some players or a player from within [the dressing room]. It got personal, and I thought, 'You should know better.'"

During the winter, Harmison was told to report to the ECB's new academy at Loughborough. His work with Troy Cooley helped him adjust his bowling action, but he did not relish the journey to the East Midlands. "It's the worst place in the f***ing world: four and a half hours away, in the middle of nowhere. I hate that place. It was so depressing."

An unlikely source offered him an alternative. Paul Winsper, Harmison's old fitness coach at Durham, had joined Newcastle United FC and got in touch to invite him to their training ground on behalf of Sir Bobby Robson. "He'd read that article and told me, 'The manager has read it, and I told him it's a load of s***. He loves his cricket, and said you can come here.'"

Ha' me some victories: from the start of the tour of the West Indies to the end of the 2005 Ashes, England won 16 Tests and lost only two Tom Shaw / © Getty Images

Harmison, a boyhood Newcastle fan, took up the offer. "I was training every day with elite sportsmen, and good men as well: Gary Speed, Shay Given, Alan Shearer - top professionals. I knew Alan before, because my dad and his dad worked together for 20-odd years in the same factory. Sir Bobby basically said to me, 'Just follow them for the next eight weeks and you'll turn into one of them.'

"They opened their arms and let me - somebody from the outside - in. I said two things straightaway: that I never wanted to wear Newcastle United kit, because I believe you earn the right to wear it - like with England cricket stuff; and that when the footballs were out, I wouldn't go anywhere near them. My gangly legs were not really appropriate to go anywhere near you as a £10 million footballer…"

When England arrived in Jamaica in February 2004, Harmison was "as fit as I've ever been" and had two warm-up games to prepare for the first Test. England had lost 1-0 in Sri Lanka in Harmison's absence and had not won in the Caribbean since 1967-68 - but he was quietly confident. "We believed we could win," he recalls. "A lot of us were at the right time in our careers to make a mark.

"It was a decent West Indies batting unit: [Chris] Gayle, [Shivnarine] Chanderpaul, [Ramnaresh] Sarwan, [Brian] Lara. Devon Smith got a hundred in the first Test. Ridley Jacobs was a tough customer. But we caught them cold: I don't think they realised, with the surfaces they produced, that England had a fast-bowling unit that was going to take on the world."

Caribbean catharsis: England's 3-0 win was their first series victory in the West Indies in over three decades David Ashdown / © Getty Images

At Sabina Park, England fielded a fast-bowling attack of Harmison, Matthew Hoggard, Simon Jones and Andrew Flintoff for the first time, complemented by Ashley Giles' left-arm spin. West Indies chose to bat and were bowled out for 311 early on the second morning; Harmison took 2 for 61 in 21 overs.

"The wicket was too bouncy," he says, laughing. "Anything on a length, Devon Smith just cut the s*** out of it: bang! He was a bit of an unknown for us - it's not like now, when you've got loads of footage - and he was a thorn in the side. Hoggy and Simon were a little bit more effective, because their natural length was a little further up than mine and Fred's."

England took a slender first-innings lead of 28, Mark Butcher and Nasser Hussain top-scoring with 58 each. "That was guts," Harmison says. "It was not Bazball, by any stretch of the imagination.

"Tino Best and Fidel Edwards bowled rapid when it was struggling for light. Their experience - and Graham Thorpe, with his hundred in Barbados - was unreal throughout that whole tour."

West Indies resumed their second innings on day three after surviving three overs on Saturday night. In the fourth over of the day, straight after Harmison and captain Michael Vaughan spoke about moving Thorpe from third slip to deep third, Thorpe held onto a brilliant catch above his head to dismiss Chris Gayle. "A lot of things went my way," Harmison says. "They just kept going and going.

Harmison gets rid of Tino Best in the first innings. He got Best second time around as well. "I don't think they realised, with the surfaces they produced, that England had a fast-bowling unit that was going to take on the world" Ben Radford / © Getty Images

"Chanderpaul gets bowled off his legs. Daryl Harper was umpire and with [Ramnaresh] Sarwan, we appealed for lbw and caught bat-pad at the same time: it was like Daryl just went, 'It's close to both, f*** it', and he gave it out. We had a lot of luck."

When Hoggard had Lara caught at second slip, then caught Smith off his own bowling, West Indies were 21 for 5 and still in arrears.

Jacobs and Ryan Hinds added 20 - by far the biggest stand of the innings - before Harmison struck with a snorter that reared from back of a length to strike Jacobs on the glove. The ball ballooned up to Hussain at short leg.

"I've seen that ball so many times again since," Harmison says. "I always think, it's a good job it hit the glove; it might have hit him in the throat, and that would have been a hell of a lot more painful.

If a scoreboard could weep: the story of West Indies' second innings at Sabina Park David Ashdown / © Getty Images

"For about five overs, I felt as though I could have got a wicket with any ball I bowled. I felt invincible. When you're out of rhythm and things aren't going well, you can bowl four overs and be blown out of your backside thinking, 'I'm knackered here.' But that day I was as loose as anything, it was mid-30s degrees, I bowled 12 overs and I felt as though I could go all day."

He cleaned up the tail, with Best fending behind and Adam Sanford and Edwards being caught at first slip, with seven other England fielders in the cordon. Harmison led England off with figures of 7 for 12, and it only took Marcus Trescothick and Michael Vaughan 17 balls to knock off the paltry fourth-innings target of 20.

"I knew it was special, walking off the field - and that team knew how to celebrate. We had trained so hard as a team and there wasn't much alcohol consumed before that Test match. But during the celebrations, we probably drank more than we would've done in the three weeks leading up to it.

"We won in the middle of Sunday afternoon, and I reckon we were going for the best part of 24 hours. There's an unbelievable picture where the sun is coming up and there's Butch, sitting underneath a palm tree, playing his guitar. We're all still in our whites. It set the ball rolling for some great times, culminating in winning the Ashes in 2005."

Seven ways to chill: Harmison relaxes by the pool the day after taking his career-best figures David Ashdown / © Getty Images

Harmison believes that he actually bowled better in the second Test in Trinidad, where he took 6 for 61 in the first innings to set up another England win. "At Sabina Park, everything went to hand; it didn't as much in Port-of-Spain," he reflects. He finished the series with 23 wickets, ten clear of any other bowler on either side.

When he arrived in Antigua for the final Test, a signed Newcastle shirt was waiting for him, with "Harmison 7-12" emblazoned on the back. "I got some nice messages from some good people who were really good to me," he says. His most prized inscription is from Robson, who simply wrote: 'Unique Harmy.' The shirt sits framed on his wall, 20 years on.

"You have career-defining moments," Harmison says. "I had one or two - good ones and bad ones, and we all know which they are. For me, that was about being able to go and train with Newcastle and understand what it was to be a professional sportsman. Fulfilling it off the back of it made me realise for the next seven years what I needed to do as a cricketer. And that was Jamaica."

Matt Roller is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo. @mroller98

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

 

RELATED ARTICLES