equatorBrett Lee has had a shocking last twelve months.
Injury, love woes, form loss, losing his king of cricket pop title to AB DeVillers, and the Chris Gayle ruining his come back.
Today he stepped over the carcass of the last 12 months.
Coming on after Ponting threatened to spank him for not taking the game seriously enough, Lee earned a test spot and went back to his golden form.
Lee’s problem is this coma he hops into from time to time where he leaks runs, forgets about wickets and frustrates everyone who wants him around.
It was only a few weeks ago I had the Brett Lee debate,
“Which Lee will make his comeback in the Ashes, the miserly demon leader or the run leaking waste of space?
Should Australia punt on Lee, with his poor record in the UK, or is it time to let him reclaim his birth right of Bollywood’s favourite white cricketer.
Usually I am so sure, but with Lee, I have already back flipped so many times my back is gone. For once I shall leave it to the selectors and Ricky, so I expect Lee to be there for the first test.”
How many people would pick Hillfenhaus or Hauritz ahead of him now?
It seems that all that earnestness in Lee’s demeanour of late has been transported into pure fast bowling aggression, even if he did need a kick in the bum from Ricky.
The score was 0/172 when he came on, a short time later the score was 5/209, and Brett Lee and Ricky Ponting were best friends again.
It was probably Andrew Hilditch’s favourite warm up spell of all time.
Lee went from a probable to a definite, and the bowling quartet was completed without a phone call needing to be made.
Even though England has been way more impressive than Australia in their warm up game, Australia must feel like they have hugged a leprechaun with their two biggest form worries coming good in one match.
And it must be said, Lee looked magnificent; like someone had covered in him in butter and told him he was God.
Reverse swing was his weapon, but he had pace, was almost unhittable, and had the presence of a man in charge.
The rest of the attack had a nap.
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i’m prepared to eat my words and accept Lee back into the squad. I’m prepared to reverse my opinion as long as Bing keeps reversing as well. The problem is that both Bing and Mitch have a tendency to leak runs. More reason for at least thinking about Ronnie to keep things tight. But I guess Clark can do that as well. So I guess it’ll be Johnson, Siddle, Lee and someone else.
Its so easy to write that negative twaddle you came up with in the Brett Lee debate. Just too easy to say he is past it, will never be near his best again and his record in England speaks for itself. Yeah, and keep bashing Andrew McDonald as not being test standard.
But as in Formula 1, what happened? Brawn became a brand. So this means that Team Cooley will contest the next Ashes. Against a set of unguarded stumps if necessary, just like the twattish way 20/20 used to be decided should there be a draw, that’s how powerful the brand is. Believe.
I have agreed with the Brett Lee bashing – aside from a couple of fantastic patches at the beginning of his career and from the much more recent Sri Lankan summer Breet has been anything from honest trier to outright woeful with the ball. I love that he’s back in form and though he was superb yesterday – woo hoo. That being said I like this forum because it offers smething other than the boringly presented blanditudes available elsewhere in the paid press.
the questions is, who is no. 4?
How can someone so bad, be so good?
Or is it the other way around?
oh well, at least he’s not Hauritz…
That long opening stand allowed Belly and his mates in the dressing room to hatch a plan. Get Brett picked. Bowled? LBW? It aint hard to fake. Whoops, I’ve gotten out. Gee this bloke’s good – you should pick him.
It was good stuff! Happy for him. Guy does not have a lot of talent but sometime makes it up with his heart and amazing fitness levels (he has been bowling at top speeds for nearly a decade now). Bizzaro Shoaib Akhtar anyone
It is Bizarro world right now. Till last week Hussey could not buy a run while others around him were getting them in a group discount and Lee was pathetic while Mitch was awesome. In the last match both Hussey and Lee are doing great while the others are shit. To top it off, Harmisson took wickets!!
It’s wierd, he must have a lot of talent to bowl the way he did for the 07 season, and it aint possible to bowl the way he did against the Lions yeaterday without having a shitload of talent – but where does it go the rest of the time? I reckon there’s 3 Brett Lees
Bowling just within himself and getting no swing or seam movement and taking bugger all wickets at a reasonable r/o
Getting frustrated with taking bugger all wickets and trying to bowl faster – losing control and going for a shitload, earning the ire of the pubic monkey and being vanquished to the boundary
And all too infrequently, bowling a fraction within himself, realizing short men can’t bowl good bouncers and focussing on being difficult to score off and hoping that it swings or seams – economical and threatening when conditions don’t suit, and potentially explosive otherwise… exactly what I saw yesterday
Yep, you become a 300 wicket taker by being ‘anything from honest trier to outright woeful with the ball’. Sure I would rather junk that experience right now and take Hilfenhaus into an Ashes with his zero experience.
yeah, amazing that, without any talent at all, he could take over 300 wickets.
I can’t understand it
Plenty of talent, but only brought to the table about half the time- how many 300 wicket takers have 10 series or more where they average 40+, including a 50+, 2 x60+ 1x 90+ and 1x 100+
Ben, It was also easy to write the positive twaddle.
Ned, then surely they should have been doing that plan with Hauritz.