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| June 17, 2005 | Friday | Jumadi-ul-Awwal 9, 1426 |
Lee may miss opening one-dayers
LONDON, June 16: Fast bowler Brett Lee is “very unlikely” to play for Australia against either Bangladesh or England this weekend — regardless of the results of Thursday’s scan on the fast bowler’s shoulder injury, the world champions’ coach John Buchanan said.
Lee suffered a twinge in his right shoulder at Taunton on Wednesday and couldn’t complete his spell in Australia’s shock four-wicket defeat against Somerset.
That was Australia’s final warm-up match before they enter the NatWest Series triangular one-day event with games this weekend against Bangladesh in Cardiff on Saturday and England in Bristol on Sunday.
On Thursday, 28-year-old Lee was sent from Cardiff to see a London specialist in a bid to find out the cause of his injury.
Meanwhile, with the Ashes Test series set to start in July, Buchanan made it clear there was no point risking Lee at the start of the triangular.
“I think it would be very unlikely that Brett would be playing over the weekend, regardless of what comes out of the scans today,” said Buchanan.
Defeat against Somerset meant Australia had lost two matches in three days after their 100-run Twenty20 reverse against England at the Rose Bowl on Monday.
Australia captain Ricky Ponting said he was “angry” and “embarrassed” after seeing his side fail to defend a total of 342 for five against the second division county where he had a brief spell as an overseas player last season.
Ponting even added that Australia were playing so poorly they may find it tough to beat Bangladesh, bottom of the world one-day international rankings.
But the thoughtful Buchanan, trying to put the results into perspective, said: “We are just a bit off the pace at the moment. We are just not right at the top of our game and not playing as we would like — that is obvious.
“We would probably like to be a little further on in terms of application of our skills in the limited-overs game — but that is not the case. We look forward to improving over the course of the tournament.”—AFP
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