Brett Lee announces retirement from Test cricket: Australia quick calls it a day after 310 wickets

[Watson87]

Lee was the Aussie version of Ishant Sharma. When Sharma will retire he will have similar stats, but Lee was a better ODI bowler than Ishant. R.I.P Blondie

[punjabi_khota]

23 bowling average in ODIs and 310 test wickets@30 are pretty good hauls. He was exciting to watch, even though was overshadowed by messrs mcwarne for most part of his career.

[Watson87]

23 bowling average in ODIs and 310 test wickets@30 are pretty good hauls. He was exciting to watch' date=' even though was overshadowed by messrs mcwarne for most part of his career.[/quote'] I think he averages 40+ against us, he probably has a higher average against NZ, Lanka and WI the minnows of test cricket

[bsriharsha]

and to be honest , Lee bowled at a time when the wickets were tougher for bowlers....it was almost like the faster that bowlers bowl , the easier the ball will go to the boundary

[Deleted_User_1]

Lee set to quit Tests to prolong career Looks like he is going the route of Bond and Flintoff........ http://www.cricinfo.com/australia/content/current/story/449615.html

[Guest Hiten.]

Mitchell Johnson will probably end up with better bowling figures than Lee and he is the reason why lee won't be missed (of course, Dougy is there too).

[Texan]

Going the Bond way... I was so disappointed when Bond retired. He was one foreign player I loved to watch. Genuine FAST bowler with a genuine bowling action. He could terrorize any batting side. Huge loss for the game! Lee achieved much before his retirement. He probably wouldn't have found a place in the team anyway now.

[Guest DeveGowda]

Going the Bond way... I was so disappointed when Bond retired. He was one foreign player I loved to watch. Genuine FAST bowler with a genuine bowling action. He could terrorize any batting side. Huge loss for the game! Lee achieved much before his retirement. He probably wouldn't have found a place in the team anyway now.

He will be in trouble to get place in ODI & T20 if Aus decided to include Tait and Nannes... Both of them are alreday retired from 1st Class cricket....

[Watson87]

He will be in trouble to get place in ODI & T20 if Aus decided to include Tait and Nannes... Both of them are alreday retired from 1st Class cricket....

Tait looks more threatening than Lee, I remember in the World Cup match when Tait was bowling to Boucher, i felt as if Boucher would shat his pants when Tait was running towards him :hysterical:

[Feed]

Brett Lee announces retirement from Test cricket: Australia quick calls it a day after 310 wickets Australian pace bowler Brett Lee has announced his retirement from Test cricket with immediate effect.More... Brett Lee announces retirement from Test cricket: Australia quick calls it a day after 310 wickets By Sportsmail Reporter Last updated at 2:05 AM on 24th February 2010 Australian pace bowler Brett Lee has announced his retirement from Test cricket with immediate effect. Lee has been hampered by injury in recent years and has elected to bring an end to his international career in the longest form of the game after 76 Test appearances. 'I am extremely proud to have played Test cricket for Australia,' said Lee. 'My reason for retiring from this form of the game is so that I can preserve my body and continue to represent my country in the other forms of the game.' Calling time: Lee's Test career - which saw 310 wickets - is over The 33-year-old intimated last week he had been considering walking away from the longer format of the game as he faces a lengthy rehabilitation following elbow surgery in December. Lee has described the injury as the 'most painful' of a Test career that has yielded 310 wickets but has been undermined by injury in recent years. The quick missed last year's Ashes series after suffering a side strain on the eve of the first Test and has not worn the baggy green since the 2008 Boxing Day Test against South Africa. Sporting moment: Lee is consoled by Andrew Flintoff in 2005 as England took the final wicket to win the second Test on a nail-biting fourth day at Edgbaston Australia skipper Ricky Ponting heaped praise on Lee for his contribution to a successful period for the country over the past decade. 'Doing what he does, running 35 metres every ball that he bowls, bowling every ball at close to 150kph and putting his heart on the line every ball he bowls, this guy deserves a massive pat on the back," he said. 'His winning strike rate and ratio in games that he's played for Australia is up there with the greats, and I will cherish every opportunity I have to play with Brett in the shortened forms of the game from here on in. 'I and the rest of the team obviously wish him the best with his recovery, and hopefully he gets the green and gold back on and is out there representing Australia.' Turning to Lee, Ponting added: 'Congratulations, mate, on what's been an amazing Test career.' Class act: Lee Cricket Australia chief executive officer James Sutherland paid tribute to Lee's efforts with the national side since making his debut in 1999, when he claimed five for 47 in his first Test innings against India. 'Brett's had a fantastic career in Test match cricket for Australia over a long period and I take this opportunity to congratulate him on the way he has represented his country and the outstanding contribution he has made,' Sutherland said. 'Brett has played a key role in helping the Australian team be one of the most successful Test teams in history. 'But it's also the way he went about his cricket; with a readiness to smile and a clear enjoyment of what he was doing, which also helped lift the team's popularity and won the support of fans in Australia and throughout the world. 'I remember seeing him debut at the MCG against India in the Boxing Day Test back in 1999; he bowled a very quick spell that had the Indian batsmen ducking for cover and straight away I think we all knew then that we were watching the birth of a great fast bowler.' Lee leaves the Test scene sitting fourth on Australia's all-time Test wicket-takers list, behind Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Dennis Lillee. 'To finish his Test career sitting fourth on Australia's list of Test wicket-takers, behind names such as Warne, McGrath and Lillee is a fantastic achievement," Sutherland continued. 'Although he's now retired from Test cricket, I look forward to seeing him return to Australian colours in the shorter formats of the game, as I'm sure are many cricket fans around the world.'

[achilles]

Brett... you'll be missed :((. But Kings XI & the IPL watchers say a big "HELLO" :two_thumbs_up:

[Deleted_User_1]

He seriously thinks he can make it to the Aussie team in the ODIs???? Hmmmmm

[achilles]

^ I don't really care if he does or not. Actually, I don't he cares either. He'll be well off playing IPL, CLT20, Big Bash, T20 Cup England, Standard Bank Pro20 and other competitions. On a patriotic front, it may hurt him to see Dog Bollinger play ahead of him in the team, but well, Australian selectors aren't the brightest guys around anyway, neither is their chief selector :punter:

[Bradman99]

He seriously thinks he can make it to the Aussie team in the ODIs???? Hmmmmm

Why not ? If he gets back to his best, he will definately be in with a chance.

[Feed]

Speed kills the fast bowler Brett Lee's retirement marks another stage in the passing of a cricket species. More... Speed kills the fast bowler Brett Lee's retirement marks another stage in the passing of a cricket species Peter English February 24, 2010 With Brett Lee's Test retirement the game has lost another of its endangered species. The fast bowler capable of lightning spells is dying even though the men who create the bolts are stronger and fitter than ever. Lee, who could touch 160kph, rates Test cricket as the game's pinnacle but his body, wrecked by years of feet pounding into the ground and arms slinging balls, won't let him play over five days. What is sadder than the resignation in Lee's eyes is a fast-bowling landscape without high-speed, high-class quicks. His withdrawal leaves Dale Steyn as the only experienced paceman who is currently fit. Steyn has just played his 38th Test, half the number Lee managed, which makes him the grandfather of the modern fast-bowling generation. At 33, he has been broken by the trade. Cricket's joke is fast bowlers are stupid, but the crowded schedules have forced them to become increasingly clever - and business-orientated - in their outlooks. Lee is hoping his frame allows him to turn out in one-day internationals and Twenty20s, a specialist path already being taken by Shane Bond and Andrew Flintoff. Given the gruelling demands of Tests, bowlers cashing cheques that fly around like old-school bumpers seems the smart thing to do. Lee has had five ankle operations, a couple of bouts of surgery on his right elbow, back stress fractures, side strains and stomach tears along with the other daily aches that are, comparatively, so minor they don't get reported to the physio. It's not something batsmen or spin bowlers have to endure. Jason Gillespie and Dennis Lillee, who are among Australia's great fast men, have praised Lee for the way he dealt with so many setbacks and bowled through so much pain. Only they truly understand the demands of slamming up to 20 times their body weight on to the front foot at delivery, for overs and days in a row. Since the start of the millennium, the declining Makhaya Ntini is the leading fast bowler with 380 wickets, but he wasn't in the Lee-Steyn league for pace. Lee leapt for 310 Test breakthroughs, with his first game coming at the very end of 1999, and is second on a decade list that is full of quality bowlers but has barely a sprinkling of extreme speed merchants. Shoaib Akhtar, who has appeared in 46 Tests, now talks more about comebacks than making them and hasn't played a five-day game since 2007, the year Lasith Malinga was last used by Sri Lanka. Captains wanting containment add to the problems. Bond becomes as brittle as a drought-hit tree when he has to bowl over consecutive days and Flintoff could be super fast in bursts, but only when his ankles, knees and shoulders stopped groaning. McGrath, Pollock, Zaheer, Gillespie and Harmison were fast-medium, while Vaas and Hoggard, who also feature high on the list, were more medium-fast. Kemar Roach and Mohammad Aamer have just started learning about how hard quick bowling is after emerging over the past year, but both have already experienced the discomfort associated with operating at more than 150kph. Roach's ankle is already requiring painkilling treatment, while Aamer missed a Test against Australia due to a groin problem. Those types of injuries don't win sympathy, but Roach can ask Fidel Edwards, who is stuck on 43 Tests, about dealing with discomfort in the 2000s. The astonishingly quick bowlers are loved because they are frightening and rare. With Lee's departure a genuine speedster has gone and left little apart from Steyn. It's easy to long for previous eras when bowlers seemed faster than they were probably were, which is an unqualified judgement from a comfy spectator's seat. In the 1990s, Ambrose, Walsh, Donald, Waqar and a young McGrath had more than 250 Test wickets for the decade. Marshall, Hadlee, Kapil, Imran and Botham achieved that mark in the 10 years before. They were greats, varying between fast-medium and flat-out, who operated on a diet of fewer matches and no lucrative Twenty20 distractions. Australia's next long-term bowling hope is Mitchell Johnson, who hasn't missed a match in 32 Tests since his debut, but he's not super fast. Currently he is the third quickest bowler in Australia's Twenty20 team, behind Shaun Tait, who reached 160.7kph against Pakistan, and Dirk Nannes, who is regularly in the 150s. Tait doesn't want to play Tests and early this week Nannes retired from first-class action. The longer game is just too hard and they get injured too often, which costs international caps and threatens IPL deals. Four overs at full throttle is the new dream, not 20 overs a day of grunt during two innings of a Test. Over the next couple of months Lee's creaking body will tell him if he can cope with even such a small amount of work.

[achilles]

Very balanced article. The fact that "bowlers prefer the shorter formats over the Tests" seems to get highlighted in this article and the discontent of the writer is understandable. But times keep changing. And we should change with them. Most people, if given option, would opt for an ODI or even a T20, instead of a Test, where it is becoming increasingly difficult for the fans to marvel dot balls, given the slam-bang and excitement of the shorter formats. Talking about speed, I don't think any Indian can be talking about it until we produce an express pacer ourselves. And as far as stating a generalization goes, stating that "Speed kills the fast bowler" is a hyper-exaggeration. Dirk Nannes is 33 and touches 90mph+ regularly.

[champ]

look at his career and his achievements .. nothing kills .. its just lazy people who dont want to bowl fast say this .. its better to have a great career for 8 or 10 years than ordinary career for 15 years ..

[Bradman99]

look at his career and his achievements .. nothing kills .. its just lazy people who dont want to bowl fast say this .. its better to have a great career for 8 or 10 years than ordinary career for 15 years ..

Exactly. If Lee was not so fast, he would not be the same bowler. Not even close.

[Anakin]

Good luck for Brett

[Nash]

Exactly. If Lee was not so fast' date=' he would not be the same bowler. Not even close.[/quote'] Still he is not Glenn