London, July 21 (Inditop.com) Brett Lee’s injury continues to frustrate the Australians ahead of the third Ashes Test with the team management slated to take the decisions over the bowler in a couple of days.
Lee has missed the first two Tests of the series, which the Australians trail 0-1, and has yet to bowl a ball since being diagnosed with his side injury.
The Australians will make a judgment in the next 48 hours on whether they can thrust him into the tour match against Northamptonshire, starting Friday.
“We will see how we go,” Australian coach Tim Nielsen was quoted as saying in the Guardian. “We are progressing with him. The positive thing is that in a tour game we do have the flexibility over how much we can bowl him or how much we don’t bowl him.
“He hasn’t bowled yet, so we just have to sit with the medical staff over the next few days and chat about how much we need to get into him and whether it is going to progress him to the stage where he could play in the third Test.
“My feeling is, if it is not going to mean he is available to play in the third Test match, we are going to have to be really careful about rushing him back.”
Lee has not played a Test for Australia since the Boxing Day defeat to South Africa. He took six first-innings wickets against England Lions last month but suffered discomfort in his ribs as a by-product.
The Australians are concerned he has not had enough match practice to make a return viable.
“The injury that he has is a bowling-specific injury and history shows if you have those injuries again it tends to be six, eight, 10 weeks before they come right, if you actually re-tear the side,” said Nielsen. “Two, three, four overs in the nets is probably not enough to prove that he is right to go.
“If he had to bowl say 11 overs in a row, like Andrew Flintoff did yesterday, to win a Test match for us, we would want to be comfortable that he is strong and fit enough and able to do it.”
rounak