Cook puzzled by pace duo snub; Harmison and Onions in Ashes blow

Evening Chronicle (Newcastle, England), June 23, 2009

Byline: NICK PUREWAL

STOPPING short of bemoaning any further the loss of his chief strike bowlers, Geoff Cook simply lamented Steve Harmison and Graham Onions' bad luck.

The Durham duo are facing a summer without Ashes cricket after neither was named in the match squad to face Warwickshire at Edgbaston (July 1- 3) in the pre-Ashes warm-up.

Onions was named in the wider Ashes training squad, but Harmison was selected for the second string England Lions, who will face Australia at Worcestershire's New Road (July 1-4).

Those selections not only leave Cook slightly surprised, but also deny Durham their two chief weapons for the forthcoming Worcester County Championship clash at the Riverside (July 1-4).

Despite the first-up blow for Cook's pace attack, he has not yet ruled out both men winding up in the Test team before the end of the series.

Cook said: "Can I see an England side with Onions and Harmison in this summer? "Well, they are not in the team at the moment and they will be disappointed, but there are five Tests against the Australians and there could be injuries and loss of form for the selectors to think about.

"They have got to be the first cabs off the ranks as far as I'm concerned.

"This sport is completely different from say, Premier League football, where you don't get any fixture clash which could cause a club versus country dispute.

"That is the way the game is set up, the national side is the most important thing and we know that.

"Every selector has a different vision for the England team, but it doesn't look like Graham or Stephen are first-choice seam bowlers.

"England will have a clear idea of what they intend to do in the First Test and Cardiff has had a reputation as a turning wicket this summer so they look as though they intend to go into it with two spinners.

"Graham and Stephen are both very unfortunate in my opinion because they have been bowling fantastically well this season as individuals and as a strike bowling pair. But they could not do it without the back up of other people and it has been how well we have bowled as a unit which has really pleased me." Durham return to Twenty20 action at Derbyshire tonight, before entertaining Yorkshire on Wednesday and Lancashire on Friday.

Only three wins will be good enough for progress, and Durham will have to manage that without Harmison or Onions.

Cook said: "Graham has been prevented from playing by the ECB so we've had to change things a little bit, but Stephen is available if we wanted him to play. However, he didn't play in the first round of games and we have decided to give him a rest this week as well.

"We've got a mountain to climb in Twenty20 cricket, but it isn't an insurmountable one.

"As we have seen with the Twenty20 World Cup over the last three weeks it is very unpredictable.

"You can put together three or fours wins just as easily as you can suffer three or four defeats so we still believe we can reach the knock-out phase for the second year running.

"It's hard but I think that's the beauty of this form of the game. A lot can change very quickly." DURHAM (Derbyshire): David Warner, Phil Mustard, Kyle Coetzer, Dale Benkenstein, Ian Blackwell, Will Smith, Gordon Muchall, Gareth Breese, Ben Harmison, Mitchell Claydon, Neil Killeen, Scott Borthwick..

CAPTION(S):

MISSING PAIR: Durham's Graham Onions and Steve Harmison