Harmy happy to rejoin England fold

The 28-year-old fast bowler was almost written off at the end of an Ashes series but four months later he is revitalised after playing for Durham - even captaining them at times during a pre-season trip to Cape Town - and taking a staggering 24 wickets in their first three championship matches.

It has been an amazing transformation in fortunes and Harmison stressed: "I've got nothing to prove to anyone - this is my 50th Test for England and I've taken nearly 200 wickets. My poor form got blown out of all proportion because the first ball of the Ashes went to second slip and that's what I will be remembered for during the Ashes."

He added: "That is sport and you have to come back from bad times, it's what makes you stronger. I'm not coming back to prove a point, I'm coming back to back Andrew Strauss as captain and stick by him and whatever he wants me to do I'll do it."

Harmison has engineered his recovery through missing the World Cup after announcing his retirement from one-day international cricket and concentrating on good old-fashioned values like bowling overs and trying to hit a good line and length.

He has bowled 156 first-class overs already this season and he admitted: "People have criticised me for not playing county cricket, but I've done that now and I've bowled my overs.

"There are quite a few reasons why I stopped playing one-day international cricket and one of the reasons was that if I'm going to play Test cricket I wanted to build up by bowling overs.

"By not playing one-day cricket, it will give me a chance to play a couple of games for Durham and make sure I'm perfect for Test matches. To be like that I think you have to play a few more first-class games to make sure you keep going.

"I've consistently bowled at a lively pace in good areas and I think the statistics speak for themselves.

"Maybe I've bowled one or two overs too many, but you can't have everything and I've had a good build-up coming into this Test match."