England’s new bowling coach, David Saker, says he is not ruling out Steve Harmison as a contender for the Ashes series in Australia this winter.

“There’s no way Steve Harmison is out of the picture. I’m not going to write off someone as tall as he is and someone who can really cause some damage to the Australian team,” Saker says in an interview in the June issue of The Wisden Cricketer magazine.

“I know the Australian batters sometimes talk about him as one of the hardest guys to face and he troubles them more than anybody. I want to see the best XI represent England. I’m never age-biased in the way I pick a team,” he tells the magazine.

The former Victoria coach is gearing up for a highly competitive Ashes series and says that England’s bowlers will be up for the battle.

“I can assure you that the English bowlers won’t be backing down. You’ve got to really get into the contest and be competitive. Most fast bowlers are like that. The ones that come in and out of the game are the ones that aren’t that competitive. The ones that last are unbelievably competitive people. All of the fast bowlers I’ve met have all had that competitive streak and the aggression comes out when it’s needed.”

But Saker believes England must add defence to their aggression to be successful against Australia.

“You’ve got to have a good defence as a bowler, not just a good attack. The English team are a good attacking side but at times they leak runs. And that’s one of my jobs, to make sure we don’t leak as many runs in those middle overs when you really need to defend.”

As in the victorious home series of 2005 and 2009, swing bowling will be an area where England holds an advantage over Australia. Saker says, “The art of swing bowling in Australia is lost to a degree. There are still a few natural swing bowlers but because the technical coaches have come around and changed so many parts of technique it’s actually stopped a lot of people swinging the ball.”