Brett Lee has ended his Test career, but while he won’t be donning the baggy green again the Australia paceman plans to continue in the shorter forms of the game.
The 33-year-old, who has recently been battling an elbow injury, told a media conference at the Sydney Cricket Ground that, “It's with mixed emotions today that I will announce that I'm standing down from Test cricket.”
With that, a 76-match Test career that has yielded 310 wickets was officially over. Lee has ended it as the fourth-most prolific wicket-taker for Australia in Test cricket, behind only Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Dennis Lillee.
In truth though, it’s been a while since Lee had played in the five-day format. The 2008 Boxing Day Test against South Africa was the last time the New South Welshman represented Australia in the white uniform. Since then, injury has curtailed his opportunities in all forms of the game.
Lee missed out on selection for the 2009 Ashes series due to a side strain, which came after he’d spent time away from the game to recover from foot surgery at the start of the year. The elbow injury, for which the bowler went under the knife late in 2009, was the latest setback for Lee’s cricket.
And though Australia has blooded some impressive new bowling talent over their home summer – Doug Bollinger foremost among them – a fit Lee’s value to the side in the shorter forms of the game cannot be underestimated. At his venomous best, Lee can decimate an opposition batting line-up, and as if to prove he still had what it took, Lee did just that in an ODI at Lords over the 2009 English summer when he fired in a series of brilliant yorkers to claim five English wickets and seal the Aussie victory.
Lee, whose decision to scale back his cricket commitments was also made for family reasons, admitted pulling the pin on his impressive career did cross his mind.
"I thought about quitting all parts of the game actually a while ago, but watching a bit of cricket ... I've still got that passion and that desire inside my belly, it's burning to get back out there and play cricket for Australia."
Indeed, Lee said his decision to retire from the Test arena was made “in order to prolong my one-day career for Australia”.
"There are some key goals which I'd like to achieve and first and foremost I'd love to be a part of the T20 World Cup and further down the track next year in India ... I'd love to be a part of the 50-over one-day World Cup."
We’re yet to see whether Lee has lost any of that lightning pace post-elbow injury, but while Shaun Tait might rival him for speed in the Twenty20 format, at last count at least, Lee was still the fastest of Australia’s ODI bowlers.
Lee now needs to prove he’s still capable of the express pace that has helped him claim more than 630 combined wickets in Tests and ODI matches for Australia.
The paceman insists he has “a lot more cricket left in me”. The real test now is whether his body, after more than 12 months battling a string of injuries, agrees.
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