Brett Lee has joined Australia’s Cricket Hall of Fame, and the former quick was quick – pardon the pun – to thank Dennis Lillee for keeping both his back and his dreams intact.
Key facts first. The 49-year-old collected 310 Test wickets at high velocity, another 380 in one-day internationals, and helped secure World Cup titles in 2003 and 2007. He was unveiled as the Hall’s latest inductee on Sunday, fittingly in front of Lillee’s statue at the MCG, 24 hours after a bowler-friendly Boxing Day Test finished on the same ground.
Now for the back-story. Lee first met Lillee at a fast-bowling camp while still at school. The advice he received was blunt and, as it turned out, prophetic.
“You’re the quickest here, but if you don’t change your [bowling] action, in two years I reckon you’ll have a broken back,” Lee remembers being told.
True to teenage form, he shrugged it off.
“When you’re 16 you think you’re invincible, and two years later I broke my back,” he says, half-smiling at the memory.
The injury forced Cricket Australia – then operating as the Australian Cricket Board – to fly him west for remedial work with Lillee. The pair went through countless video sessions and grooved a more repeatable, slightly side-on action.
“Throughout my whole career he’s been incredible in modifying my action, changing my action and allowing me to play – I wouldn’t say pain-free – but to get to the speeds I did,” Lee says.
Those speeds were eye-watering. His 161.1kph thunderbolt sits among the quickest legal deliveries recorded, a mark he’d chased since childhood.
“I wanted to bowl quick and to have that thrill of being able to run in and see the stumps fly, it became this obsession,” he recalls. “That’s what I wanted to do. I think back to the age of nine or 10 and I wanted to break that 160kph barrier.”
The inspiration came from poster-boy predecessors.
“Jeff Thomson was a guy I looked up to through the 70s and 80s and 160.45kph was his record. I thought, ‘I want to have a crack at that one day’ – and I was lucky to achieve it.”
Analytically speaking, Lee’s induction feels inevitable. He formed a pace cartel with Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie and, later, Mitchell Johnson that dominated the early 2000s. His yorker swung late, his bouncer climbed steeply, and his white-ball skills were ahead of the curve, particularly at the death where length variation and raw pace cramped hitters for room.
Yet there were setbacks: the stress fracture that threatened everything at 18, the ankle niggles that ruled him out of the 2011 World Cup, and the tinnitus-inducing noise whenever he lost rhythm. Each time, Lillee was on the other end of the phone.
Hall of Fame panels often debate longevity versus brilliance. Lee delivered both. He stretched an international career from 1999 to 2012, balanced relentless speed with an economy rate under five in ODIs, and rarely shirked the new ball in Tests. The numbers make sense; the man behind them is quick to divert praise.
Asked why he still defers to Lillee, Lee shrugs. “He changed my action, sure. But more than that, he made me believe I could bowl as fast as I dreamt. That’s a massive gift.”
Plenty inside the old Members Pavilion nodded along. Speed may thrill, but mentorship sustains – a decent message for any young bowler eyeing that mythical 160kph mark.
