He has not always been in the media spotlight for the right reasons this summer but Brett Lee insists the experience has made him not only wiser, but a better player.
There were times this summer when Brett Lee must have felt this is what life as a pro cricketer is really like.
After two seasons in which he could do little wrong as Australian cricket's biggest bolt of excitement in years, Lee was suddenly cast as the villain more often than the pin-up through a series of events definitely not in his career script.
There was his send-off of Kiwi tailender Shane Bond at the WACA Ground during the third Test, which earned Lee an $8250 fine for conduct unbecoming.
There followed the firestorm of Adelaide, when Lee was widely castigated for pelting South African bunnies Makhaya Ntini and Nantie Hayward with bouncers, striking Ntini on the helmet and following Hayward well wide of leg stump. Lee had also drawn attention to himself at various times for crowing over the dismissals of some of the world's worst Test batsmen.
While the bouncers were defended more firmly by Lee and his captain Steve Waugh than by Ntini and Hayward at the crease, the less defensible was to come - an incident during a one-day match in Perth when Lee chased Jacques Kallis with a bouncer after the South African had called a halt to the delivery when distracted by a seagull.
Not even the sight of Lee coming to the aid of another seagull, this one dying, in the same game will have altered some people's image of a golden-haired boy charging in with blood dripping from his fangs.
The respectable, charity-giving young man, who plays guitar, is a classically trained pianist and still goes to his former job in a menswear store when he can, had to get used to publicity which, to compare him with fellow sportsmen, was far more Shane Warne than Pat Rafter.
There was nothing put out from Lee's side of the story, as this most marketable of players dropped his profile distinctly low in a self-imposed media ban. It was left to the public to ponder whether he was simply an exuberant competitor or whether, unforgivably in Australia, he was a bit of a thug.
In person, the latter seems untrue. In his first meeting with the media to discuss his summer, Lee came across as a young man learning his way, no saint but neither a man too carried away with himself.
He has had to hear accusations that he had his head in the clouds and both feet planted firmly in mid-air, but as he moves this week to the high altitude of Johannesburg for the first Test, the 25-year-old says his summer, while a honeymoon-ender, has been an important lesson that rough times will come with the smooth.
"Of course - and I think it's really good for me, too," said Lee, who broke his silence on his torrid season at an Australian team media day.
"It's made me a lot better cricketer and made me a lot more aware of what's going on. I think criticism's good if you can take positives out of it. That's what I've tried to do over the last couple of weeks and last couple of months. I've been criticised a little bit and I've tried to take positives out of it to make me a better cricketer and a better person."
Lee confessed to a wrongdoing with the Bond send-off: "Everyone makes mistakes and I was the first to put my hand up. I've learned my lesson. I've done the time for it. It's time to move on."
Of his assault on the hapless Hayward, he said: "I tried to bowl a couple of bouncers purely to get him out. I wasn't trying to hurt the feller, or cause any sort of malice. Myself and Nantie are pretty good mates off the field, but I think as soon as you walk out on the field you've got to play your tough cricket."
The less heard of any excuses put forward for the Kallis incident the better. In any event, it was certainly a storm of the like Lee would rather do without in future.
"The first two years was great, playing Test cricket. I've got to really focus now on getting back and doing what I did the first couple of years. I was really just enjoying my cricket and having some fun and that's what I'm trying to do now," he said.
Lee, who still shared the Test bowling honours with Warne at home this summer with 23 scalps in six matches before a flat one-day series, said it was comforting to be around others who had experienced their share of ups and downs. "There's probably going to be tough times in the future where you probably go through a little heartache where you might not be taking wickets or might not be scoring runs," he said.
"It doesn't matter which player it is, it's a matter of the whole Australian side getting right behind each other and boosting that player up."
Going up to Johannesburg for the first Test excites Lee. Not only will he be back amid the rarefied atmosphere 2000m above sea level where he bowled his fastest recorded delivery - 156kph - in a one-day match two years ago, he will be eager to start a new chapter in his career after hitting his first prickly patch.
"I'm excited about getting back here," he said. "The altitude factor always plays a part, the ball goes through the air a fraction quicker. That's something that will excite the quick bowlers.
"I'm looking forward to the whole tour. I think the South Africans now will be very, very hungry. I think they're going to put up a really good fight this series. It will be a lot closer challenge than what it was in the last series."
- TREVOR MARSHALLSEA