England's decision to target Brett Lee in the pre-Ashes 'bouncer war' is paying early dividends.
Brett Lee, Australia's fastest bowler, has fired off another round in the bouncer war with England by admitting that he is aiming to inflict psychological blows ahead of next month's Ashes series by targeting key players such as Andrew Flintoff. However, he also concedes that he is fortunate not to have already flown home with a broken arm after his red-blooded exchange with the England allrounder during the Twenty20 match at Southampton.
Andrew Strauss, the England opening batsman, said last week that Michael Vaughan's side planned to target Australian tailenders in general, and Lee in particular, with short-pitched bowling. Lee has responded tellingly, however, with both wickets and words. In Durham he bowled Strauss off an inside edge in his third over and now says he intends to "work" on certain opposition players in what remains of the NatWest Series.
"It is important to make a few scars early in the tour," said Lee. "I don't mean literally scarring people, but there are mental points you can win over a batsman if you get him out a few times or bowl some short stuff or some yorkers. It is a matter of picking out a couple of their key players and trying to work on them.
"We're playing against a very good English side, probably the best side that I've come up against in my four years playing against England. The whole team looks compact. It looks like it's very well balanced. We've got a huge challenge ahead of us to win this one-day series, and then our long-term goal is to win the Ashes again.
"We know we have been playing under par recently and have a lot more up our sleeve. We know we can play better cricket. Whether it's going to beat England, we don't know. It is two great teams fighting it out. There's very competitive chat going on out there."
Lee believes he scored a psychological win against Flintoff when he dismissed him during the one-dayer at Edgbaston last September. "Freddie's an awesome player and it was a big wicket," he reflected. "Hopefully it was something I could use the next time I came to play against him. You're not out there to hurt a batsman, but you might want to scare him or shake him up to get his wicket and make a bit of a mental point."
Lee looked intent on reinforcing his point when he targeted Flintoff with short-pitched balls at the first opportunity during the Twenty20, but Flintoff won the battle on the day, striking the Australian three times when it came to England's turn to bowl. He hit him on the hip, shoulder and arm. The blow to the shoulder put Lee out of action for 10 days; the blow to the arm put the fear of God into him. "I dish it out, so I'm okay with getting it back, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried," Lee admitted. "At the time it just felt like a normal blow and it hurt my ego more than anything. I tried to guts it out and show no pain. But when I tried to bowl in the Somerset match (two days later) my shoulder didn't feel right, which was why I called it quits after four overs."
As for the blow on the arm, he was just grateful to survive. "It is lucky that we are pretty well padded. If I hadn't had that arm-guard on, I would be on a Qantas flight home. That was a really quick ball that would definitely have broken my arm. It's a pretty thick pad, but my arm was bruised. To tell you the truth, I didn't really see it."
Lee, labelled a once-in-a-generation bowler by Steve Waugh, might be forgiven for thinking that's how often Ricky Ponting, Waugh's successor as Australia captain, intends playing him. He hasn't played a Test in the 18 months since Ponting took charge.
However, that may be about to change. The early one-day skirmishes between the sides suggest that for the first time in 20 years England possess the faster, nastier bowlers in Flintoff and Steve Harmison, and it is unlikely that the Australians will tolerate a serious imbalance in firepower.
Lee is the natural choice to restore Australian pride in the speed department. He has topped 94mph here already and has given Ponting's attack a more incisive look since returning after his injury three days ago.
Lee, who has taken 139 wickets in 37 Tests, has learnt to be philosophical about his Test prospects. His critics regard him as an expensive luxury and Ponting appeared to share that view after Lee's chastening match figures of four for 276 in Waugh's last Test at Sydney.
Lee and Ponting just seem to see things differently. Take Kevin Pietersen's spectacular innings in Bristol. Ponting dismisses it as tantamount to a fluke, saying that if his side had bowled properly, "there was no way he could have scored 91 off 65 balls . . . it is not possible". Lee, on the other hand, says: "I don't think any attack in the world would have stopped him on that day. It was just his day."
Interestingly, Ponting didn't give Lee the chance to resume his personal contest with Flintoff in Durham on Thursday. He pulled him out of the attack at the first opportunity when the allrounder came in to bat and kept him out of attack for the 22 overs that Flintoff was at the wicket. In this instance Ponting may have been right, because for the second time Flintoff holed out in the deep off left-arm wrist spinner Brad Hogg.
Lee sees Harmison, meanwhile, as shaping into a serious threat. "Confidence is the most important thing in being a sportsperson and you can see it with Steve in the way he holds himself," he said. "He has got an aura now when he walks out. England should be very happy that they have a class bowler. I remember the time in Perth when he lost his run-up. He had his head down and he just didn't want to be out there. I felt for him. But to see him a couple of years later, he's so full of confidence.
"He's tall and so co-ordinated for a fast bowler who can bowl over 90mph. That trajectory off the pitch is pretty scary. He's got his lines and lengths right. With Flintoff, it's a pretty good attack."
Harmison's figures against Australia to date this season make interesting reading: 21.3 overs, two maidens, 90 runs, seven wickets. More interesting still, he has made Ponting hop around the crease and dismissed him twice.
Lee suggested that the Australians were relishing the challenge of facing a strong England side. "It's great that we're up against these fantastic players," he said. "You've got the English version of Michael Clarke in Kevin Pietersen. He's young, fit and flamboyant and loves entertaining the crowd, and that's great for the game, though it's not great when he's hitting us around the park.
"You have to think on your feet against a class player like that. We haven't seen a lot of him. He picks the ball up early and creates his own shots. He can hit a very long ball. If he has a fantastic one-day series, England would find it pretty hard not to pick him. It would be great not to play against him in Tests."
- SIMON WILDE