'Things were dark, but cricket was my release'

Regrets? He's had a few. But then again, fewer than you might expect him to mention.

"I had a lot of problems but I wouldn't swap what I did, because of the love of playing for Durham and England," says Steve Harmison, the former England fast bowler. "There were times when things were dark, but there was times when cricket was my release. I was a maverick, for want of a better word. I could win a game in a spell, or go at nine an over and lose it there and then."

Where Ashes series are concerned, this truism has been distilled into a handful of identifiable deliveries. The elbow clanger to Justin Langer and the cobra bite to Ricky Ponting's cheek at Lord's - early indications in that seismic summer of 2005 that Australia were about to face a challenge such as they had never before encountered.

One Test later, that slower ball to Michael Clarke and that desperate looping rib-tickler to Michael Kasprowicz at Edgbaston - moments recalled with freeze-frame clarity by a generation of England cricket fans, who had been taken to the brink and left there to dangle before that moment of sweet release.

And then, on the first morning of the Ashes rematch in 2006-07, at Brisbane's infamous "Gabbatoir" no less - that ball, that wide. That powder-puff, bio mechanic apology of a misfire that curled straight into the hands of Andrew Flintoff at second slip and signalled - symbolically at least - the surrender of the urn that England had worked themselves to a standstill to earn 18 months earlier.

"When we went to Australia in 2006-07, only four players turned up," Harmison says. "And of the three or four senior players who didn't turn up, I was probably top of the tree."

Looking back on that delivery, a little over a decade ago, it's hard now to recall quite how much of a passion-killer it really was. There were other deliveries in the course of England's 5-0 whitewash, and plenty other disappointments - mere mention of the word "Adelaide", for instance, cricket's own version of the "Scottish play", still brings fans of a certain disposition out in hives.

And yet, that first delivery stands the test of time - as symbolic a shortcoming as has ever been served up on such a grand stage. As James Alexander Gordon might have said to the massed ranks of England fans in the Gabba that morning, "if you don't want to know the result, look away now".

"It wasn't so much the first ball itself but the build-up," Harmison says now. "I needed a lot of bowling to get my rhythm going, but I felt my side go in our final warm-up game in Adelaide, so I took the precautionary option of not playing. So I didn't have 25 overs under my belt going into the Test. I felt good in practice, but then I got to the top of my mark "

Rewatching the footage of that fierce first morning, the main thing that strikes you is the noise. The tribal roar of a packed amphitheatre, tracking Harmison's every step to the wicket, followed by a slightly baffled change of key as Langer shapes to leave well alone, and a renewed outburst of derision as umpire Steve Bucknor spreads out his arms to signal the inevitable. Yes, it was just a solitary moment in time. But what a time, and what a message to relay to the most hostile audience in the sport.

"It's one of those things, as a big tall bowler, you only have to be a little bit out," Harmison says. "I was in no position to let go of the ball. Your front arm leads and your bowling arm follows. And I had no control. It came off my third finger and looped into Andrew's hand. If you freeze the action, you can see I'm losing my left side. I was trying far too hard to bowl too fast.

"It could have gone behind me. Did I freeze? Possibly. I just think I tried too hard."