RICKY Ponting's 11th-hour bid to shoehorn Brett Lee into Australia's Test side appears doomed.
Lee has been favourite all week to carry the drinks for the First Test against Pakistan starting today but the matter was sent back to the national selectors yesterday when Ponting floated the idea of playing Lee as part of a four-man pace attack and dropping a batsman (Darren Lehmann or Michael Clarke).
Ponting urged the selectors to investigate any possible avenue of getting Lee in the team - but the selectors, who have the final say, had reservations about team balance, so Lee seems poised to carry the drinks for the fifth successive Test.
Given Pakistan were routed by the West Australian side and the Second XI in three days there hardly seems a need for an extra fast bowler.
But Lee bowled with ferocious intensity at the nets on Tuesday to strike Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist on the hands and remind his teammates of his potential on Australia's bounciest wicket.
The other factor in favour of him being part of a four-man pace battery is that with the three Tests against Pakistan in just over three weeks Australia need to ensure their fast bowlers do not become burnt out and that Lee, with just one first-class game in 10 weeks, is ready to perform if he gets the chance in the following Tests in Sydney or Melbourne.
Ponting met with selector on duty David Boon twice yesterday to discuss the matter and they are again due to meet before the toss this morning.
But the skipper would need to slap down a persuasive case this morning because it is not in the nature of the selectors to tamper with a winning formula.
"He's right in the mix to play the game," Ponting said of Lee yesterday.
"It was pretty well documented yesterday how hard and fast he bowled in the nets yesterday [Tuesday] afternoon. Matty Hayden has a sore thumb to prove that.
"It would be nice if we could have that showdown that everyone is looking at - the Pakistani fast bowlers against all of our fast bowlers and how each batting side is going to react to that.
"His pace is certainly as good as I've ever seen it."
Pakistani firebrand Shoaib Akhtar remained the centrepoint of pre-match discussions yesterday with Ponting playing down the threat the fiery quick poses.Test great Dennis Lillee warned the Australians at a pre-Test dinner that they may be focusing on the wrong man.
"I know everyone is talking about Shoaib Akhtar but Mohammad Sami is the man who interests me," Lillee said.
"He is a very fine bowler who bowls stump to stump and can swing the ball."
Ponting said Shoaib was easily the fastest bowler he had faced but the Australians drew a measure of comfort from the fact that he could only bowl in short, explosive spells.
"We have to make sure we get through those first three or four overs he bowls and hopefully the longer we make him bowl, the more bad balls he bowls."
It has been speculated Australia would try and blast out the out-of-form Pakistani top order - notoriously vulnerable on bouncy wickets - but Justin Langer has informed the Australians that 16 of the 20 Pakistan wickets in their landslide loss to Western Australia fell to edges so Australia are mindful of the rewards of bowling in the off-stump corridor.
"You don't have to blast them out," Ponting said.
"If you get the ball in the right areas in these conditions, because the conditions are very different to what they're used to, I think they'll make the mistakes.
"Whichever attack we go in with, we'll still have the firepower to soften them up a little if we have to."
- ROBERT CRADDOCK