Brett Lee: Two decades of lightning

Jan. 5, 2014, 3 a.m.

''I want to end my career bowling at the same pace I started it.'' With these words, Australian pace bowling great Brett Lee tells Daniel Lane how the fire within still burns as brightly as ever as he continues to battle Father Time.

When Brett Lee, these days a blur of energy and motion in the Sydney Sixers' distinctive magenta shirts, charges in against the Adelaide Strikers at Adelaide Oval in Sunday's Big Bash League match, he will attempt to defy logic - and the frailties of the human body - to be the first fast bowler to hit 150km/h every year for two frightening decades.

History tells the tales of pacemen who have unleashed Lee-like lightning bolts - Fred ''The Demon'' Spofforth, Albert ''Tibby'' Cotter, Harold Larwood, Frank ''Typhoon'' Tyson, Wes Hall, Jeff Thomson, John Snow, Michael Holding, Andy Roberts, Shoaib Akhtar, while, in recent times, Dale Steyn and Mitchell Johnson struck fear into tough, hard men.

However, none boast the longevity of the 37-year-old from Oak Flats, near Wollongong, who said the fact his fast and furious reign has lasted 20 years was a personal badge of honour.

''No one's done it for 10 years,'' Lee said of his ability to still break cricket's equivalent of the sound barrier. ''When you think of Shoaib Akhtar and the other guys, they haven't been able to sustain it for that 10-year basis. If I hit 150 now, it'll have been for 20 years I hit 147 [for the Sixers] so I'm getting close.

''I'm loving the fact I can still play at 37 and feel like I'm producing the goods. If I felt like I was hindrance or a handbrake to the team, well, I certainly wouldn't be out there. With my reputation, with my cricket, I wouldn't hold on for the sake of it. It's all about competing and being one of the strike bowlers for the team - that's the reason why I'm playing.''

Lee has suffered a hospital ward's worth of pain for his art. He battled possible career-ending stress fractures as a teenager, had a string of ankle surgeries and wrestled with an assortment of ailments that would have tested anyone's resolve. But the need for speed was his siren song and, regardless of how cruelly the craft treated him, he could not resist the lure of taking the new ball again.

''There's a lot of mental toughness that goes into it - it's not just pure physical strength and durability,'' said Lee of the long, tough slog. ''There's the need to endure the forces and to have the will to keep going. I think people are now starting to realise how hard it is to be a fast bowler and that's what I pride myself on - that I've been able to bowl [at top speed] for 20 years.

''The longevity, that's my proudest achievement. It's not taking [over] 300 [Test] wickets or 380 one-day wickets for your country it's putting your body through so much stress and so much strain and knowing you can come out the other side. I had 10 operations, six ankle ops. For some people, one ankle operation is game over. So I endured the comeback time and time and time and time and time again and putting my body through hell - but I've enjoyed it.''

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Brett Lee: Two decades of lightning