MELBOURNE, Dec 28: Australia will almost certainly enter the Test series finale in Sydney next week with a vastly inexperienced attack after learning spearhead Brett Lee faces a month out of the game due to a foot injury.

Lee has been out of form and was unable to improve his series figures of one for 200 when the problem kept him off the ground for the Sunday’s entire third day against South Africa at the MCG.

Lee has what the team physio Alex Kountouris described as a stress reaction — “on the way to being a stress fracture” — in the fourth metatarsal in his left foot.

While there is a chance Lee could bowl in the second innings, it could take as little as one ball to turn the small crack into a stress fracture and a four- to six-week layoff is probably required either way.

“I don’t think he’ll be able to play the Sydney Test,” Kountouris said. “We’ll wait and reassess at the end of the game but if he’s got stress fracture, it’ll probably mean we’re going to rest him for four and six weeks.”

That would rule Lee out of ODIs against Proteas and Kiwis.—Agencies