Early Test cricket career

By the end of the 1990's decade Brett Lee had done so well in the side matches that he was called up for being included in the national squad of the Australian cricket. He was then selected amongst the top 14 candidates for the Test cricket series against the very competent team Pakistan, which was in the year 1999. However he failed to make it to the final 11 that year. Soon after this he made it to the twelfth man in the Test series played against the Asian team India.

Brett Lee Test Debut

Brett Lee was given the prestigious chance of playing his debut test match for his country Australia in the month of December, in the year 1999 when the team was touring India. Brett Lee then became the 383 rd test cricketer for the Australian cricket team.

Brett Lee was a superman in the first test cricket match of his career against India. He captured a wicket and bowled Ramesh in his fourth spell of his very first over of the test cricket match. He then also took the wicket of the very popular batsman of India Rahul Dravid in the first delivery of his over. He then went on playing a superb bowling match in his first test cricket, taking over all three wickets in only six balls and then completing the inning with the figures of 5 wickets giving only 47 runs in 17 overs. In the same match, Australia had to bat first and Lee had scored 27 runs. He got thirteen wickets in the two opening matches with India, which were also his debut test matches with a low average of 14.15.

Brett Lee had achieved so much in the first few matches of his career that he was appreciated not only by the Australian cricket team but also worldwide. He was awarded the prestigious title of the Young Player of the World, associated with the Donald bradman name at the award ceremony of Allan Border Medals in the year 200 after he had debuted in the first few cricket matches.

Brett Lee was also charged for some illegal actions in his bowling when he had toured to New Zealand for the test matches, as reported by the umpires Srinivas and Arani. The charges were then investigated and cleared of all illegalities.

Brett Lee held a whopping figure of 42 wickets in the first three opening series an also got the esteemed position of being the highest wicket taker by any Australian bowler at such a rate in the seven matches that he had played. Brett Lee then had to suffer a major problem in his career as he went through a major lower back stress facture in the seventh Test match in the second innings against West Indies.

He then came back to play against Zimbabwe but then again suffered a major injury after breaking his elbow and had to be sidelined for recovery until May 2001.

Brett Lee then made a comeback from his health problems in the year 2001, in the Ashes tour of England, where he had just recovered from his elbow injury. Brett Lee was like always good in taking wickets, but the same spark as he had in his debut was missing. The statistics reveal that he earned nine wickets to his credit in the five test cricket matches at 55.1.

The dip in the career graph of Brett Lee was not there for long, as Brett Lee was back with a bang as the leading bowler of Australia in the first and also the third test playing against the neighboring country, New Zealand later in the same year. In the same match, Brett Lee earned a total of 5 wickets to his credits in the second innings and also contributed 61 runs scored by him in the first test match played. The series then ended in a draw match. The series was concluded, with a total of 14 wickets taken by Brett Lee at 25.14. There were also two other series played against South African team, which did not prove to be as good as the other, taking about 19 wickets collectively in all the six matches at 38.42.