Australia's pace spearhead Brett Lee was keen to draw lessons from the Sri Lanka-West Indies tie in the Champions' Trophy at the Cricket Club of India (CCI) yesterday. The reasons appear trivial but on closer inspection the speedster does appear on a mission.
Lee is gearing up for Australia's first match at this venue on October 18 — a landmark tie for him since it would only be the first time that Lee would play an international match on Indian soil.
Australia, incidentally, will play all their matches in Mumbai. They, alongwith South Africa and New Zealand, had made the initial request to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) which the latter has agreed to.
Strange but true that Lee who has been around for six years and picked up 211 Test and 249 one-day wickets hasn't ever played a game in India. In these last six years, Australia has visited India for two Tests and two one-day tours.
During his high-profile six-year career, Lee has visited all other countries except for Pakistan and India. He did play Tests against Pakistan in this part of the world in 2002 but one of them was in Sri Lanka and two were in Sharjah those were the years when troubles off the field kept Australia from touring Pakistan.
Lee played against Bangladesh earlier this year when Australians visited them while returning from a draining series in South Africa.
Interestingly though, Lee has played a Test in Sri Lanka but against the Lankans, he is yet to turn out in a Test match. Lee is curious to find out if Indian pitches are as difficult as his senior colleague Glenn McGrath makes them out to be. McGrath is on record having said that Indian pitches are toughest on fast bowlers.
"The heat, dust, pitches, public, food everything seems to get you. The key to bowling on these pitches is to be patient," McGrath has said.
Lee followed yesterday's game not for his personal reasons alone. There is a buzz at the CCI about the poor lighting arrangements. Apparently the lights are not high and strong enough to spread visibility evenly.
According to local wiseheads, the fielder in the outfield will sure have difficulty in training his eyes on a skier since light in a particular section is really bad. The organizers have tried to add some extra lights at this wing in order to improve visibility but it hasn't helped since the stands and the fence seems to "eat up" most of visibility.
CCI, formerly known as Brabourne Stadium, is keen that it leaves a good impression from the game returning as it is to international calendar after a gap of nearly three decades.
Lee in all likelihood would be Australia's spearhead and keen to leave an impression since his team usually fares poorly in Champions' Trophy. It has never reached the title round and once departed in its very first game in Dhaka losing to India and Sachin Tendulkar's brilliance.