IT is widely assumed that the loneliest walk in Test cricket is the one undertaken by a batsman who has just been dismissed for a duck.

Yet while a sense of failure seems to grow with every step towards the edge of the field, the sanctity of the dressing room lies in wait.

Far worse, surely, to be a bowler heading back to his mark with no confidence of where the ball is about to go.

There is no escape here, just a grudging acceptance that humiliation is six-fold and that every failure must be followed by an opportunity to suffer even more embarrassment.

Forget the loneliness of the long-distance runner - what about the loneliness of the fast bowler who has lost the ability to perform?

Goodness knows what was going through Steve Harmison's head as he turned to bowl his first over of the West Indies' second innings on Saturday night, but it is a safe bet that the Durham paceman did not feel as though he was amongst friends.

The knives weren't so much out following his wayward performance in the tourists' first innings, they had been polished, sharpened and laid out in ascending order of size.

The bloodlust was palpable, so it took a performance of immense courage and heart for Harmison to post figures of 4-95 and effectively win the game for England with two wickets in an over on Monday afternoon.

In the past, Harmison has been accused of lacking the bottle required for sustained success at the highest level. At Old Trafford, he proved once and for all that there is nothing wrong with his passion or commitment.

There remains something awry with his radar, however, and the pressure will be just as intense as he performs in front of his home crowd at Riverside this weekend.

England's new bowling coach, Allan Donald, has promised to iron out the technical deficiencies that affect Harmison's game.

Yet for all that the former South African great will be aware of the 28-year-old's tendency to contort his body angle at delivery, thus making his wrist more susceptible to collapse, an attempt to address such technical minutiae is the last thing Harmison needs.

Last weekend's mid-innings coaching session has become infamous thanks to its contravention of the rules - what nobody seems to have picked up on is just how counter-productive it proved.

With his mind crammed full of technical mumbo-jumbo, Harmison produced one of the most wayward sessions ever delivered by an England bowler. Like a golfer suffering from the yips, he seemed to be trapped in a recurring mental nightmare.

Every sportsman needs coaching, but sometimes the best instruction is to rely on instinct. For Harmison, that simply means bowling as fast and as straight as possible.

Durham's Geoff Cook realised as much, banning any "technical talk" to Harmison ahead of a season that began with him taking 15 wickets in the opening two County Championship matches.

David Beckham's life is rarely free of clutter, but the knight-in-waiting certainly came to England's rescue in Estonia.

As one of the people who applauded Steve McClaren's decision to drop the former skipper last August, I had to swallow my pride a bit last Wednesday. But I'll continue to argue that McClaren was right to axe Beckham last summer.

Back then, the Real Madrid midfielder was still trying to be here, there and everywhere when it came to the England team. Nominally on the right of midfield, he quickly became a disruptive influence as he repeatedly drifted infield to assume centre stage.

The most surprising thing about Beckham's two assists last Wednesday was not their quality - everyone knows the 32-year-old is a deadly deliverer of the ball - it was that he was standing on the touchline to produce the crosses in the first place.

Beckham played like a genuine right winger and if he continues to do so there is no reason why he should not play in the rest of the qualifying campaign.