Gillespie’s optimism dented by injury to Harmison

Harmison injured his left side during the latter stages of yesterday’s game against Leicestershire and will be assessed by Yorkshire’s medical staff.

Yorkshire have no plans to add to their 13-man squad, which is the same that saw service at Grace Road. The squad travelled straight to Northampton last night during a hectic period in Yorkshire’s season.

“Harmy hurt himself towards the end of the game and we will assess him and see where he’s at,” said Yorkshire’s first-team coach Jason Gillespie.

“He just felt something in his side and we will get the physio to have a look at him.

“It would be a blow to be without him because I think he’s been fantastic since he signed for Yorkshire. When we first signed him everyone was saying it was a gamble, but it was never a gamble in my opinion.”

Harmison has served up a mixed bag since joining on a month’s loan from Durham but Gillespie believes he is running into form.

Nor has he ruled out the possibility of trying to extend the player’s loan period.

“We’ve talked about it but we also have to take into account Durham’s needs,” he added.

“They might see him coming into a bit of form and want him back, but we’ll have to wait and see what happens.

“As far as I’m concerned, Harmy’s been fantastic. There have been times when he’s sprayed the ball around a little bit but we know that the more overs he gets, the better he gets.

“It was interesting listening to Ian Gould, one of the umpires here at Leicester, say that when he heard Harmy running into bowl in the second innings it sounded like the old Harmy.

“The umpire could hear that the rhythm was coming, and it’s just unfortunate now that he’s picked up this injury.”

Harmison had been jeered by a small section of the Grace Road crowd on the opening day.

A succession of wides and no-balls sparked ironic remarks from the home supporters.

“It’s disappointing,” conceded Gillespie. “You’ve got an England Test legend and people are jeering him, and I thought that was poor in all honesty.”

What pleased Gillespie was the way his side performed in general. “We sound like a broken record at the moment but we can’t control the weather,” he said. “It is frustrating, there’s no doubt about that, because we dominated the game without a doubt.

Yorkshire squad versus Northamptonshire (from): Lyth, Root, Jaques, Gale (captain), Bairstow, Ballance, Pyrah, Rafiq, Patterson, Harmison, Ashraf, McGrath, Rashid.