Brett Lee has said that he feels much better with his fitness and that is in all likelihood due to the four-month lay-off that he had from cricket. Lee had last toured India in October, but failed to make an impression and then has been out of cricket for most portion of the next four months.
Lee got injured during the Boxing day test match against South Africa, and then did not play in the rest of the season. He toured the UAE with the Australian national team to play an ODI series, but did not feature in too many games. He then returned back to South Africa to play in the IPL for the Kings XI Punjab.
Lee said that in the tour to India, he ended up losing seven kilos, and then got injured. Those four months that he was away, he said, ensured that he got to full fitness and got back to his original weight.
In the IPL, he picked up a wicket each in the first two games, but what tilted the scales in his balance was the game against Delhi Daredevils, where his three-wicket haul won him the man-of-the-match award.
He said, βThe rhythm is starting to get there and I was pretty happy with the way I bowled tonight. Iβm just trying to get through each game and the ankle is feeling really good which is exciting. My whole aim was to try and get through these four overs and try and bowl a bit of pace. I was pretty happy with the effort.β
My take: A fully charged up Brett Lee and bowlers of his like, is what the cricket world needs at this point in time. The problem with Lee during the series in India had been that there was no swing to go with his pace, and that made his bowling easy fodder for the Indian batsmen. He looks to be getting a bit of swing back along with the rhythm, making him a very potent weapon in the team.