Cricket: The trouble with Harry

By RICHARD BOOCK


Try telling Chris Harris that there's not much riding on New Zealand's one-day series against Bangladesh.

The only follicly-challenged member of the present squad, Harris will celebrate his 35th birthday next Thursday amid much uncertainty over his prospects for next month's Chappell-Hadlee Series in Australia, and beyond.

The past year has already been a challenging one for the Canterbury stalwart, who was dropped for New Zealand's series against Pakistan last summer and recalled for the last two ODIs against South Africa, before spending the winter months in and out of favour.

Now approaching his 250th ODI cap, Harris has reached a point in his career when it seems all his Brownie points have been cashed in, and when every performance is being weighed extra-carefully by a critical selection staff.

Not that it should come as any surprise for New Zealand's champion of the slow-moving object, by all accounts the last of the 14-strong squad selected for the 2003 World Cup in South Africa, and dropped for the key game against the hosts at Johannesburg.

The problem these days for Harris is that his all-round abilities are almost mutually exclusive, in that his bowling is best suited to slow pitches, while his batting depends heavily on pace and bounce.

It means that, while his batting is likely to become passable on the quicker surfaces at Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, his bowling could prove something of a liability, and especially if New Zealand were to carry a lean attack.

At the moment the complete reverse is true in Bangladesh, where the pedestrian slow pitch surfaces create conditions in which Harris' exaggerated leg-cutters virtually never seem to arrive.

But on the same surface his batting, robbed of the leg-side deflections and the ability to cut behind square, can be about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

It's been 14 years since Harris made his ODI debut, and in that time New Zealand have gradually evolved their shorter game to the extent that they no longer depend on their slow medium-pacers.

In the early years it seemed New Zealand's best chance of success was by stacking the line-up with the military-mediums, and hoping for the slowest possible pitch surface.

It worked too, no more spectacularly than at the 1992 World Cup. But there is a suggestion now that the one-day scene has caught up with the practice, and that the New Zealand team have also moved on to a more expansive game-plan.

New Zealand authorities have been attempting to quicken the pace of their pitches over the past five years.

And even on the few occasions New Zealand are faced with playing on a low burner, Scott Styris can be just as lethal as his long-time team-mate, as he demonstrated this week in Chittagong.

The likelihood is that, with Nathan Astle also starting to bowl again after his knee surgery last summer, the need for Harry's gravity-defying slow-mediums will decrease, and the pressure on his place in the team will start moving in the other direction.

For all that, there is still much for Harris to play for, quite apart from his personal ambition of taking part in his fifth World Cup in 2007.

His not-insignificant number of supporters will quickly point to his record against Australia in Australia, where he has usually excelled with both bat and ball despite all the theories about his limitations.

A shining example was in the 2001 VB Series, where he proved a constant source of irritation to the hosts and eventually played a leading hand in having them eliminated from their own competition.

That's the good news. The bad news is that coach John Bracewell is unlikely to pick him on the strength of his batting, and has other players who can fill a similar role with the ball.

There's also a suggestion that Bracewell is toying with the idea of promoting Brendon McCullum up the order, in which case Harris' stocks are likely to take a further hit.

It might not be that the veteran all-rounder is washed-up yet, but the pressure is more intense these days, and he is clearly playing for his future every time he sets foot on a cricket field.

Motivation, at least, shouldn't be a problem.