STEVE Harmison may have missed out on an England appearance on his home turf this week – but the Ashes door has not been closed on the Durham paceman.

While Graham Onions will play his second Test at his Durham county headquarters, having snared seven wickets in the three-day victory over the West Indies, Harmison will be part of the Durham squad in Friends Provident Trophy action.

He has yet to hit top form this summer for his county and a call-up for his country seems some distance away.

‘‘What we are looking for is to create a squad, it’s not just about a team,’’ said national selector Geoff Miller.

‘‘It’s a pretty exciting summer coming up and it is going to be a long summer as well so we need to create some options for the captain and the coach.

‘‘Performances like Graham produced and that of Ravi Bopara augurs well for the future.’’ But with just one Test match between now and the Ashes, the England management have been keen to leave the door ajar for members of the successful 2005 team, such as Harmison.

‘‘Steve knows what he has got to do,’’ Miller said.

‘‘He is capable of bowling at over 90 miles an hour and when he is bowling like that he is a problem for anyone in the world.

‘‘We continue to monitor that. He is still a centrallycontracted player, he is still part of our thoughts.

‘‘When Steve gets back to bowling like that he comes back into the squad.’’ Matchwinner Graeme Swann cannot help dreaming about the Ashes even though he knows it is taboo.

Swann, named man of the match in the Lord’s Test win over West Indies, his first on home soil, is inevitably considering his prospects of facing the Australians two months from now.

Recalled duo Ian Bell and Ryan Sidebottom will conceivably be doing the same, buoyed by their selection today for the second match of the npower series at Chesterle- Street on Thursday.

However, despite having the occasional casual team discussion about how they are going to tackle the Australians in this summer’s main event, the scheduling is so heavy that the players have been reminded there are other more immediate challenges to concentrate on.

‘‘Well, I’m not allowed to ...

but of course I do,’’ said Swann, who hit a maiden Test half-century and took six wickets in the crushing win at Lord’s, of thinking about the prospect of facing the old enemy.

‘‘It’s not just a party line when we say we’ve got to focus on the cricket we’re playing now –because obviously if you don’t and you play badly you’re not going to be in the Ashes.

‘‘But every time you go to sleep at night, it’s always there at the back of your mind.

‘‘I’m no different from anyone else. But I know that to get there in the first place I’ve got to carry on performing in this series, in the Twenty20, in the one-dayers – because it only takes two or three bad games and you’re consigned to the scrap-heap again, while they look for another off-spinner to come and take your place. I’m not going to let that happen.

‘‘But sure ... at the back of my mind, I want an MBE – like the rest.’’ Thirty-year-old Swann’s incredible rise to prominence, since his debut in India last winter, has strengthened the potential for England employing two spinners against the Aussies.

He has taken 33 wickets in just six Tests to date and such a ratio has put him well on course to equal Ian Botham and Fred Trueman’s feat of completing a half-century of victims inside 10 Tests - fellow off-spinner Jim Laker took a dozen matches.

An example of how his stock has risen in such a short period of time came when he and the England management pinpointed the one-day series against the West Indians in the Caribbean as a time to have elbow surgery.

Such is his worth in the current Test attack that captain Andrew Strauss surprisingly threw him the new ball at Lord’s on Thursday.

Having previously operated alongside Monty Panesar at Northamptonshire, Swann has surpassed his former county colleague in the Test standings by maturing into his role.

‘‘I wasn’t good enough 10 years ago,’’ Swann conceded.

‘‘Even three or four years ago, after going to Nottingham, I was still really discovering my game.

‘‘I’m delighted. I wouldn’t change anything going back.

There were a few rough years, but I think they’ve all added together and made me a better bowler.

‘‘I always had in the back of my mind that I could play (Test cricket), because when I used to play against the overseas players – invariably Test players – I had a knack of getting them out and bowling well at them.”

England 13

AJ Strauss (captain), AN Cook, RS Bopara, KP Pietersen, PD Collingwood, IR Bell, MJ Prior (wicketkeeper), SCJ Broad, TT Bresnan, GP Swann, JM Anderson, G Onions, RJ Sidebottom.