Fast bowler Brett Lee has struck a pact with his wife Liz that has spared Australian cricket a potential hiccup in its bid to retain the Ashes — he will play in the first Test in Brisbane even if she is in labour with their first child.
The Lees have agreed that, should the birth of their son — who is due on November 22, the day before the first Test — clash with the series opener against England, Lee will remain in Brisbane to play for Australia.
"We've said right from the start, which is credit to the person that Liz is, that I will definitely be playing in the first Ashes Test," Lee said.
"I'm hoping and praying that it either comes early or late. To me, cricket is important, but family is the most important thing in my life. Hopefully I can be there for both."
Lee will meet Cricket Australia to discuss whether he can make a hasty flight from the Gabba to Sydney should the birth occur before the Test.
Lee's manager, Neil Maxwell, said yesterday that all options would be explored. "Cricket Australia have offered Brett a great deal of flexibility with this," Maxwell said.
"I think there would be a specific time when it would be 'no go' to leave the team, but Brett and Cricket Australia will work out how far out from the match that is."
Lee, meanwhile, admitted yesterday that he has never watched the replay of the closing stages of the second Test from Edgbaston last year, which Australia, with he and Michael Kasprowicz at the wicket, lost by two runs in the closest Ashes contest ever.
It is all too painful, he said, and filled with too many what-ifs.
What if, for example, the third-last ball had breached the boundary rope, and not been cut off by the off-side sweeper? What if he hadn't taken the single that put Kasprowicz on strike? What if he had steered Australia to an impossible victory, instead of watching heartbroken from the non-strikers' end as Kasprowicz gloved a Steve Harmison delivery to Geraint Jones, sealing a series-levelling win for England?
"It's too painful," Lee said. "You want to take yourself back in time and think the one that I hit to cover point, if I had hit it a metre to his left or right it could have been a different story.
"So I have never sat down and watched on it."
Lee yesterday lent a personal memento from the match, a signed painting capturing Andrew Flintoff's gesture of sportsmanship moments after Kasprowicz's dismissal, to the Museum of Sydney, as part of its Ashes display, which will feature the original urn.
"That's the way it went down in history," Lee said. "We were gracious in the way we took it on the chin, and what was important was the way we have bounced back. We lost the Ashes, but the way we have fought back and won almost every Test match since is important.
"It just goes to show that you don't have to score a hundred, or take a five-for, or win an Ashes or a World Cup for it to be one of the great experiences. You have to be humble as well and realise that you have been beaten fairly and squarely.
"The way that we fought back. The way we bowled in the second innings, the way that we chased down those runs and got so close when we really didn't deserve to get so close to them.
"It's probably the most exciting Test I've ever played in. To get so close and then have Freddie come and console me, put his arm around me and say what a fantastic match it was — to me that's what the Ashes is all about."
Lee also used the occasion to laud Australia's depth of bowling, the team's focus on this month's Champions Trophy and the lessons from the recent tour of Malaysia.
THE ASHES
- ALEX BROWN