- Brett Lee has reflected on an early moment in his Test cricket career
- The Australian cricket legend also spoke about what makes the Boxing Day Test so special
Brett Lee has told how he found out he would receive his first Australia Test cap from cricket icon Shane Warne.
It has been almost 26 years since Lee made his debut for the Baggy Greens against India, a match in which he took seven wickets.
But in the build-up to the match at the MCG, Lee revealed that Warne had ruined the surprise when he found out he was starting the Boxing Day Test with his teammates.
‘Steve Waugh walks us onto the ground and Warnie stands in front of me, turns around and says, ‘Mate, you’re in, but if Tugga [Waugh] tells you, make sure you don’t know,” Lee shared The Sydney Morning Herald.
“So he ruined it for me, the big man. But I get there, and I was talking to Tugga about it the other day, he looks around to announce the side, and I have this huge beaming smile, and he says, “He knows, someone’s let the cat out of the bag” .’
The 48-year-old pace bowler would go on to play 76 Test matches for Australia, taking 310 wickets, placing him in Australia’s top 10 leading wicket-takers of all time.
Brett Lee (left) has revealed how a cheeky spoiler from Shane Warne changed one of cricket’s greatest traditions for him
Lee (left) revealed that Warne (right) told him he would get his first Test cap in the 1999 Boxing Day Test in place of coach Steve Waugh
Lee further revealed that the friendships he developed with his teammates were the one thing he missed most about playing professionally.
‘I got my cap from Ian Meckiff, and it was almost like a flashback of a kid in the backyard, playing with my brother Shane and my younger brother Grant, and us as Allan Border, David Boon and Allan Donald from South Africa . It still gives me goosebumps.’
But Lee’s career was plagued by injuries.
He would miss Australia’s 2001 tour of India due to an elbow injury before later being sidelined for their 2007 World Cup win due to an ankle problem.
He would later be sidelined for the 2009 Ashes due to a side strain and would also suffer several stress fractures in his back.
While admitting that he didn’t miss the pain these injuries caused him during his career, Lee revealed the one reason why he thinks cricket is such a special game and why there is nothing like the Boxing Day Test.
“I don’t look out now and think, ‘I wish I was there’, because when I think of Test cricket I think of pain,” Lee said.
‘I may have played a few games in my career without pain. The rest went with a knife across the back of my ankle, broken twice, double reconstruction of my elbow.
‘I don’t miss the pain, I don’t miss bowling in the heat. But I miss the moments in the locker room after games. Even the defeat at Edgbaston in 2005. It’s the moments that make sport. Sports only last a certain part of your life, but the friendships last forever.
‘I still think Boxing Day is the best Test to play in. As a young boy or girl who wants to play Test cricket, this is the ultimate test.”