England's team is made up of South Africans, Australians, Irish and now a Finn

Commeth the man, commeth the cliches.

Steven Finn, England's best bowler, is no Steven Finn. He is a combination of other older people. Some of those people are dead. Angus Fraser, for instance, has a claim to Steven Finn's bowling.

Others include Glen McGrath, Joel Garner and Shaun Pollock.

Of course, one day, people might say that young Jonny Badgers has something of the Steven Finn about him. Of course, the more mediocre Finn's career, the more knowledgeable this apparently obscure reference will seem. Then again, most Finnish players do seem destined to receive history's cold shoulder.

Lovers of cricket trivia may wish, therefore, for Finn's career to sputter and fail to history overpowering muscle, much as the 1939 capitulation of the Winter War. The rest of us, however, will hope that Finn becomes good.

It has been some time since England had a good bowler. The side normally sports a revolving turbo door of mediocre seamers, whereas the batsmen's name lingers long in the annual of national success. That Ryan Sidebottom ever played test cricket, is testament to this disbalance. And James Anderson? Exactly. James. Anderson.

The Finn, whose favourite meal may or may not be raw reindeer testicles, could offer England an "interesting" bowling option. Not a potentially frightening prospects, such as Steven Harmison or Andrew Flintoff, but, if he continues to plug away a consistent he'll probably get more wickets than either of them.

Australia undone by flying Indians

So, with every passing day, and each new post, the genius video blog gets further and further away.

*sigh*

So anyway, if you watch the highlights of Australia’s uninspired innings, you will notice something about the dismissals. The wickets were wangled out – the bowler genuinely beat the batsmen on every occasion. Perhaps only Stuart Clark gave his wicket away – the rest were beaten by balls that were too good for them.

This is the cricket that we snobby purists love: the bowlers are on top, the batsmen are struggling and girlfriends are mystified by the whole thing. The world is as it should be.

More importantly, Australians are losing. Even more wonderfully, the Indians are showing the Ausslers how to bowl, on their own turf. All these things are fantastic and marvellous and wonderful.

It also shows that lesson in cricket that has been forgotten in recent years: if you bowl well, you take wickets. Put the ball in the right place and move it about a bit and any side is vulnerable. The last time that Australians faced consistently good bowling was in 2005, when they lost the Ashes. Since then, the Australian batsmen have had it easy. Just look at Michael Hussey for Crickey’s Sake.

If India continue to bowl this well, in Australia, then we might have to give them the Ashes. The Borders-Starbucks Trophy was never really a worthy prize for the two biggest teams in world cricket.

If we can’t give them the Ashes, we should go for something better. How about an environmentally friendly pile of compost? Ricky Ponting, and the Australian team, could learn to contain some of that aggression through the gentle past-time of gardening.

It would be like those prisoners that unbended themselves through a love of gardening in the gaol yard, and won the Chelsea Flower Show.

Dammit. This idea is brilliant. All teams should be forced to have “garden-off” on the fourth day of test matches, to cool off and add a little colour to the proceedings. Say, the team with the most audacious juxtaposition of acantholimon glumaceum and helleborus hybridus is awarded a hundred extra runs.

Will a deranged Tremlett crawl back into the side?

Before the match in Kandy, I was a little worried that picking three swing bowlers may not be the best plan. I wanted Stuart Broad to “add something different”. The extra ingredient may have been chump sandwiches for the Lankan batsmen for all we know, but I’ll be smug nonetheless.

Seeing as Matthew Hoggard has broken his aging body, a replacement has become necessary. Normally, I would happily have picked the youngster.

However, with the benefit of some time and thought, I have come to wonder a little about Broad. Perhaps Sri Lanka is not ideal debut territory (Paul Collingwood didn’t flourish here when he started). Plus, Broad has looked OK but not terrifying.

So, if not Broad, then who? Well, there is, of course, an immediately available option. But that is too terrible to contemplate further.

This pretty much leaves one international class bowler standing: Chris Tremlett. Not only is that Hampshire quick a handsome fellow, but he’s also handy with the bat.

But the “thing” about Tremlett is that he’s a good bowler. Off a short run up, he hits the deck hard and generates bounce. He is difficult to play.

I was very impressed with his performance against the Indians, although he did look patchy in patches, but nonetheless, I felt annoyed when I heard that Durham geezer got in the squad ahead of Tremlett’s proven talent.

On the hard pitches and oppressive atmosphere in the matches to come I think that Ryan Hairybottom and James Anderson will break down. My man Tremlett won’t, though. He’ll get a few five-fors, I wager.

I have no evidence for this. It’s just a casual wager, you see.

Harminson: time to go?

England’s bowling, the Montster aside, looked ineffectual over this game. Fast bowling is a serious problem for us. Seam was once a huge strength for England; it is the cornerstone of the English game. During 2005, we had three players capable of bowling at over 90 mph. Now we don’t seem to have any.

The Third Umpire reckons that Paul Collingwood was our best seam bowler. Indeed, I doubt any of the current fit bowlers would get into Australia or South Africa. Perhaps only Bangladesh would play them?

This is almost a crisis for England.

Henry Blofeld was unusually opinionated on TMS last night and argued that dropping Steve Harminson was the “kick up the backside” that he needed. All the “technical” faults, delivery flaws and niggles that were identified in Australia are still present. Either the man isn’t working hard enough on his game, or his doesn’t recognise that there is a problem. He therefore requires, thinks Blowers, a shock to the system to overcome his mental barriers.

I have some sympathy to this approach. Clearly, the current strategy of sycophantic cooing is not producing results. Huge wides and pacey long-hops are unforgivable crimes in Test Match Cricket. Cumulatively, they can lose matches, allowing the batsman to settle into a comfortable rhythm.

At 28, you rather feel that “potential” is not sufficient to hold a place in the international team. At the highest level of cricket, and with his experience, Harminson should be filling his boots. He is not. He is also taking up a place that could be used to invest in another player.

So, what alternative? Revert to the unimpressive trio of Anderson, Mahmood and Plunkett? They have been given plenty of chances, but have not delivered. How about skipping a generation? Calling up Graham Onions or Stuart Broad (when he’s fit)? How about returning to the past? Andrew Miller thinks that Andy Caddick or Darren Gough could be given a shot.

Whatever the solution, these are troubling times for English fast bowling. There is no bright prospect coming through: there’s no fiery Shaun Tait or Andre Nel character that could form the basis of a future attack.

This is why England have stuck with the expensively poor Harminson: he is the only fast bowling spark we have. This is a mistake, however, as retaining him in the side is doing neither him nor his country any good. I’m afraid I think he should go.

This doesn’t have to involve a permanent elimination from the side, but perhaps just a temporarily cold shoulder to move the onus back onto Harminson to earn his place.