Brett Lee's Mid-Test Career

Then there were a series of different matches, in between before the 2003 world cup, where Brett Lee could not give his best. He was under pressure by taking only five wickets at 46.50 in the three test matches series with Pakistan in the year 2002. He took the least wickets amongst the bowlers, with Andy Bichel scoring eight wickets and all the other frontline bowlers at thirteen wickets.

Brett Lee after making his Test debut faced many highs and lows , Brett Lee was then dropped out of the first two Test matches during the 2002-3 Ashes series, when Gillespie had returned. He then came back for the Test match at Perth, after he had claimed five wickets in a Pura Cup match in opposition to QueensLand for the New South Wales. He was in major form in the test match, where he earned thirteen wickets to his credits at 41.23 in a total of 3 matches played as compared to the second best bowler Bichel who took ten wickets at 35.1.

After the 2003 World Cup ended, Brett Lee came into the test cricket action once again. He claimed a total of 17 wickets at 28.88 in four test match series against the West Indies cricket team. It was the first series in the previous two years where Brett Lee had averaged under 30 overall and the second one during that period of time where he averaged under 40.

After a break of the mid year, Brett Lee then started off with his test matches against the Bangladesh cricket team in his own country, northern Australia. He managed to achieve six wickets at 31.66 and proved to be an expensive bowler for Australia as the other special bowlers all had averaged at 14.55 against Bangladesh which was a very lower ranked team in the Test cricket. He then went on achieving six wickets against the team of Zimbabwe at an average of 37 in a very comfortable series with the statistics 2-0, however here again the other bowlers scored at an average of 23.15.

Brett Lee then played the Test cricket home series in the year 2003-4 with India, which concluded in a draw match of 1-1 for Australia. He was out of the first two matches during the test series because he had a torn abdominal muscles injury which he had sustained in the Zimbabwe Test Series. Brett Lee then decided to have a major surgery for the repair of his condition which was more commonly known as the posterior ankle impingement, he was suffering from this issue since the Test series against Zimbabwe. He then also went on having another surgery of his torn abdominal muscles. He decided to have both the surgeries together so that the recovery of both illnesses could be done simultaneously, and he would not have to cut down on his career.

Brett Lee took a total of eight wickets in the subsequent Test match series with India, at an average of 59.50. Brett Lee ended the series with one of the worst average and economy rate of all the front line bowlers of Australia, in Sydney. He was then replaced by a fellow bowler who was also one of the very fast bowlers Michael in the year 2004, during the time of the tour with Sri Lanka when Brett Lee's ankle injury went on to be worse, which forced him to return home to have a surgery. This forced him out for about more than four months for his recovery. During the time period of 2001 and 2004 Brett Lee's average had been 38.2 as compared to the 16.07 average in his early career.

Brett failed to play in the year 2007 because of the ankle injury however his fans expect a speedy recovery and comeback.