‘Is that the ceiling?’: Former Australian quick Brett Lee rues lack of fast bowlers
As a former fast bowler who terrorised batters, Brett Lee loves nothing more than watching quicks bend their backs and fire down thunderbolts.
The problem is there’s a real lack of genuine pace bowlers, the 47-year-old former Australian spearhead turned Fox Sports broadcaster believes.
Sure, there are a bunch of bowlers, including Kiwi Lockie Ferguson, who can top 150kph. But not consistently, Lee rues.
“Batsmen are now getting fitter and stronger and hitting bigger balls out of the ground. But if you have a look at the bowlers, the pace has actually decreased,” Lee said the day after a packed summer of international cricket over the Ditch kicked off in Perth with the first of three tests between Australia and Pakistan.
“If you look from 2000 to 2023 on the scale, the worm is falling and going south.”
Lee takes no pleasure in the fact the 161.3kph Pakistan’s Shoaib Akhtar reached in 2003, and the 161.1kph he clocked against New Zealand in 2005, hasn’t been topped, despite ongoing advances in sports science.
Australian Shaun Tait was clocked at 161.1kph in 2010, while another Aussie, Mitchell Starc (160.4kph), is the only other bowler to go past the 160kmh mark since.
“Is that the ceiling? Me and Shoaib were hitting 161 – is that the quickest that bowlers can go? I really hope not. I hope someone can go past that.”
The problem, Lee believes, is the moment fast bowlers are identified, they are asked to bulk up, adding muscle mass and carrying more weight. As a result, he’s seen countless bowlers go from bowling 145kph to 135kph.
If it were up to Lee, who took 380 ODI and 310 test scalps, he would insist young fast bowlers concentrated on sprinting, a clean action, and forming strong abdominal and back muscles.
“Look at Lockie [Ferguson], he steams in, but if you look at his body makeup, he is the perfect physique to bowl fast. But if it was about strength and being able to have muscle mass, you would say [Australians] Shane Watson and Andrew Bichel from our era should have bowled
“You don’t need big muscles to bowl quick. And I think it might look good, it might tick a box for a sports and conditioning person... but looking around the world, there are not 15-20 guys bowling 155kph an hour, which there should be.” Brett Lee
180kph – they looked like they had just walked off a Paris catwalk,” Lee said. “You don't need big muscles to bowl quick. And I think it might look good, it might tick a box for a sports and conditioning person... but looking around the world, there is not 15-20 guys bowling 155kph an hour, which there should be.” Outside of helping out his son, Preston, a batting all-rounder and member of the New South Wales under-17 academy, coaching isn’t of great interest to Lee.
Nor is throwing himself into the feud between two of his former teammates, Mitchell Johnson and David Warner, who plastered 164 against Pakistan on Thursday and Friday, a fortnight after the former ripped into the Australian opener's “hero send-off” and opened up old wounds from Sandpapergate.
“Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but all Davey Warner had to do, he didn't say anything publicly, he just came out and let his bat do the talking,” Lee said. Before Warner blazed his 25th test ton, Lee predicted the left-hander would score three red-ball centuries during a home summer New Zealand’s Sky Sport has rights to, and includes two tests against the West Indies in the New Year. The world test champions’ next test matches are against New Zealand in Wellington and Christchurch in February-March, when the Black Caps play host to their neighbours for the first time since 2016. Despite winning the World Test Championship in 2021, the Black Caps have long struggled against Australia in red ball cricket, last beating them in Hobart in 2011, and winning just eight of 60 tests in total. “It’s a very good question, tough question,” Lee said of New Zealand’s woes against Australia. “If you have a look at the way the Kiwis have performed [the last five-plus years], in all formats of cricket, they have been absolutely on fire... but the success against Australia hasn’t really been there. “I don’t know if it is a mindset... I don’t know if it’s that big brother-little-brother thing. You see that in the paper all the time. I don’t really buy that. We’re past that.”