By Sam Hathaway
May 21 2006

Steve Harmison was set for a recall to the England team after suffering a shin injury, but the selectors have decided to do the wise decision of leaving the pace man out for the second test against Sri Lanka.

Harmison has taken two wickets, bowling 25 overs since coming back from his injury which has kept the Durham bowler out over the winter months. Harmison didn't bowl on the last day of his county game against Nottinghamshire.

The only other change from the squad is the exclusion of Warwickshire's Ian Bell.

The next match starts on Thursday and is now a must win game if England are going to clinch the series and David Graveney (Chairman of selectors) knows the presence of Harmison would be a big help. He spoke to Radio 5 live in the week:

"England are a better team with Harmison in it - but you have to make sure you don't force nature.

"Though Steve is fit, it is questionable whether he is match fit.

"So the selectors have decided it is prudent for him to play a little bit more cricket for Durham and we'll monitor that."

Graveney also said that he was not overly concerned by England's draw in the last match despite dominating.

He said: "There were some excellent individual performances.

"You can't get away from nine dropped catches in any form of cricket let alone a Test match.

"I think it is just one of those things and people lose a bit of confidence.

"We made a mistake but the key is not to make a big issue of it because we want the guys to go out there and say 'yes I want the ball and I'm going to catch it."

I think most England fans will back the decision to leave Harmison out and hope he gets some county matches under his belt.

England squad: A Flintoff (capt), M Trescothick, A Strauss, A Cook, K Pietersen, P Collingwood, G Jones (wkt), L Plunkett, M Hoggard, S Mahmood, M Panesar, J Lewis.