Brett Lee | Australia

Full name Brett Lee

Born November 8, 1976, Wollongong, New South Wales

Current age 32 years 211 days

Major teams Australia, Kings XI Punjab, New South Wales

Nickname Bing

Playing role Bowler

Batting style Right-hand bat

Bowling style Right-arm fast

Height 1.87 m

Relation Brother - S Lee

Brett Lee (born 8 November 1976 in Wollongong, New South Wales) is an Australian cricketer.

After breaking into the Australian Test team, Lee is recognised as one of the fastest bowlers in world cricket. In each of his first two years, he averaged less than 20 with the ball, but since then has mostly achieved figures in the early 30s.

He is an athletic fielder and useful lower-order batsman, with a batting average exceeding 20 in Test cricket. Together with Mike Hussey, he holds the record for highest 7th wicket partnership for Australia in ODIs since 2005–2006 (123).

Profile

Brett Lee is determined that age and injury shall not weary him. Always positive and flashing a smile from a toothpaste advertisement, he insists his body "still feels really young", but after years as Australia's youthful pin-up he has entered fatherhood and his early 30s. At first there was the pace, but then came the injury and long layoff. It is a recurring theme in Lee's career as he has aimed for numbers that would result in licence suspensions on any Australian road. His speed thrills, but after overcoming another serious ankle problem in 2009, there is no guarantee he will be able to continue slamming his foot down. Despite planning a post-cricket career in Bollywood - he already has a hit song with You're The One For Me and is learning Hindi - Lee is confident of delaying the all-singing, all-dancing routine for a few more seasons.

However, this time the scene has changed since Lee hobbled out of the 2008 Boxing Day Test for foot and ankle surgery. The rise of Mitchell Johnson and Peter Siddle has put rare pressure on Lee, who scraped into the Ashes squad, and he was so determined to join the set-up after five months out he flew to South Africa to be near them. His troubles started last year when he missed the Bangladesh one-day series for family reasons and then struggled with illness and form during his first Test campaign in India. Despite keeping his public spirits high, he didn't spark at home either - of his 21 wickets in eight games in 2008-09, nine came in one match against New Zealand - and it was sad to watch him grimace through the final day in Melbourne.

One major difference in his 2007 recovery was Australia needed his return to health. Previously Glenn McGrath and Jason Gillespie provided the cover, but the changes in the attack left Lee as the main man. And he excelled. Against Sri Lanka he was Man of the Series for his 16 wickets, another 24 came against India and by the time the West Indies campaign was over he had 58 Test victims at 21.55 in the post-McGrath era. The Allan Border Medal was another reward, along with the Test Player of the Year prize and the Pura Cup, which he helped seal with 97, his highest first-class score.

Over the past few years Lee's outlook has matured - essential variety has been added to the bouncer-yorker method - and he has become consistent to the point where the team analysts struggled to log a bad ball in some 2006-07 Ashes innings. Twenty England wickets helped him move on from the 2005 defeat, but the summer ended in disappointment when his ankle turned painfully at training in New Zealand.

As Lee completed rehab after an operation to reattach the ligaments, his team-mates reacquainted themselves with the World Cup. Lee was disappointed to miss out, but remained upbeat. "Having a bit of a layoff is good for the body," he said. "Although I'm 30 I still feel like I'm 27 as far as bowling age." When he was really young he was the freshest and fastest at a flicker above or below 100mph, and always seemed on the verge of striking a body or a wicket. When Lee released the throttle and began that smooth acceleration, the spectator stayed his drinking hand. The leaping, classical delivery might have produced a devastating yorker, a devilish slower ball or a young-Donald outswinger. Add a dash of peroxide, a fruity vocabulary, a trademark jump for joy, a stylish bat, a streak of sadism when bowling at tailenders, a pop group (Six And Out), and an endearing link to a job at a gentleman's outfitters, and you had the 21st century's first designer cricketer - not to mention a priceless pin-up boy.

While Steve Waugh unleashed him in a dramatic opening of 42 wickets in seven Tests before an elbow operation, Ricky Ponting gave Lee a blueprint for lasting success. "The way that Ricky has captained my personal bowling over the last couple of years has just been brilliant," he said early in 2006. "Going back two or three years, I wasn't really sure what they wanted me to do."

Lee's career hasn't always been easy. He struggled against accusations of throwing, bean balls, stress fractures and other injuries, and had a strangely barren first Ashes series in 2001. Three years later he U-turned from ankle surgery, but was stuck in the pits of the dressing room as he ran drinks and sponges in nine consecutive Tests. He came back for the 2005 Ashes series and earned plaudits for his brave performances with bat and ball. He nearly pulled off a win for Australia with a battling 43 at Edgbaston, but his partner-in-crime Michael Kasprowicz fell at the contentious final hurdle. Andrew Flintoff's consoling of Lee seconds after the catch was 2005's defining image.

Less than a year later the duet with Kasprowicz reformed and a nail-biting win over South Africa eased the pain of the previous near-miss. It had been an important summer as he assumed the role of attack leader when McGrath first struggled for impact and then pulled out of tours to South Africa and Bangladesh. Lee moved into the position he had craved since crashing on to the Test scene with 5 for 47 against India, and celebrated 89 international wickets for the season with lawnmower, hunting and leaping celebrations. Now Lee has to reprove he deserves the full-time paternal responsibilities following his difficulties in 2008-09.

Childhood and early career

Lee is the second of three sons born to Bob, a metallurgist and Helen , a piano teacher.He has two brothers, the elder being former Australian all rounder and New South Wales Blues captain Shane Lee. His younger brother Grant played cricket for New South Wales at the under-19 level, and is now an accountant. Lee attended Balarang Public School and Oak Flats High School, which later named its cricket ground in his honour. His nickname 'Bing' refers to 'Bing Lee', after a chain of electronics stores in New South Wales.

The brothers enjoyed soccer, basketball and skiing and were encouraged to play the piano by their mother . Brett was introduced to the game of cricket at the age of eight by his brother Shane. He played his first formal game of cricket for the Oak Flats Rats where he took 6/0 from one over or 6 wickets for 0 runs, all of his wickets being bowled..[citation needed] At sixteen years of age, Lee began playing first grade cricket for Campbelltown, where he managed to claim the wickets of a few New South Wales cricketers. He later joined Mosman, where at one point, he shared the new ball with Shoaib Akhtar.

Lee also played for the Australian Under 17 & 19 teams and was awarded a scholarship to attend the Australian Cricket Academy.

In March 1994, Lee was forced out of the Australian under-19 team to tour India due to stress fractures in his lower back. He recovered and made his first-class debut for New South Wales against Western Australia in a Sheffield Shield match as a 20-year old in the 1997–98 season, playing one match and taking 3/114.

One month later, Lee was chosen to represent the Australian A team on a tour to South Africa. He claimed two wickets but in that very match, stress fractures in his back from the previous injury had re-opened and Lee was in a back brace for over three months. When he turned twenty-one, Lee moved to Sydney to be closer to work.

During the 1997-98 season, he played in five of the ten Sheffield Shield games, taking fourteen wickets at 30. He finished outside the top 20 in both the wicket taking list and the bowling averages.

In 1999, during a Sheffield Shield match at Perth, Lee bowled a spell against the Western Australian batsmen, compared the fastest bowling seen in Australia since the days of Jeff Thomson back in the 1970s. From that point, Australian captain Steve Waugh and then vice-captain Shane Warne began pushing for Lee's inclusion in the Test team.

Style

Lee is an express bowler, one of the fastest the game has known, and is capable of bowling at 160 km/h (99 mph). Lee's fastest recorded delivery to date is 160.8 km/h (99.9 mph) which he bowled in his first over on March 5, 2005 at Napier, New Zealand against Craig Cumming.[3] He is also an athletic fielder and aggressive lower-order batsman with a batting average exceeding 20.

Lee ranks with Pakistani bowler Shoaib Akhtar as the fastest bowler in contemporary cricket. Akhtar's delivery at 161.3km/h (100.2mph) stands as the fastest recorded to date.

Lee's speed allows opposition batsmen less time to react, increasing their chances of making a mistake and has bowled with great accuracy as Australia's bowling spearhead. He has a Test bowling average of just under thirty, which sees him ranked in the 5th in the International Cricket Council's Test bowling rankings.

Early in his career, Lee was reported for a suspected illegal bowling action, but was cleared. He was also criticised in early 2005 for bowling a series of beamers at batsmen during ODIs, at a rate which lead some to claim he was deliberately bowling illegal head high full tosses at batsmen.

Lee is at his most effective on the pitches of the southern hemisphere, where the pitches have greater bounce. In the northern hemisphere, he has taken 53 wickets in 19 Tests at an average of 42.11. In the southern hemisphere, he has taken 178 wickets in 40 matches at 28.48. He has had the most success against the West Indies and New Zealand, averaging in the low twenties. He averages more than 40 against England, Bangladesh and Pakistan, and in the 30s against other teams.