Brett Lee injury rules him out of Chappell Hadlee Trophy

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The Australian injury list is beginning to look positively English as now Brett Lee has injured his ankle in training. It looks like he'll miss the whole Chappell Hadlee series with Stuart Clark likely to replace him. This has me wondering - why the hell isn't Shaun Tait playing in New Zealand? He played two games all summer and with the World Cup around the corner, they still won't put him on the park. When are they going to let him back in the side - at the World Cup semi-final?!

So while Australia train in New Zealand, Ponting is attending fashion shows at home, Clarke has a hip injury, Lee is ruled out, Symonds has had his arm ripped out of his socket (or something to that effect) and Gilly is at home giving his pregnant wife foot massages. It's nearly a case of New Zealand versus Australia A. So much for cricket's version of the Bledisloe Cup.

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Posted by JC on Thu 15 Feb

7 comments

Why aren't they playing Tait then?? It's like England picking Bopara ahead of Loye in the world cup...why not have him playing through the Tri series??

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Posted by okbl on 2007-02-15 21:25:53

If there's a reasonable answer for not playing Tait while picking him in the World Cup squad, I'm yet to hear it.

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Posted by JC on 2007-02-15 22:41:53

I thought Tait was in this team for this NZ series.....hello what is going on ????

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Posted by Vignesh on 2007-02-15 23:18:45

I heard Buchanan defending the decision saying Tait can get match practice in the minnow matches. A few weeks ago he was lamenting how his bowlers weren't being challenged.

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Posted by JC on 2007-02-16 08:17:23

Okay, one piece of good news is Shaun Tait is flying to NZ to replace Lee so cooler heads have prevailed, so to speak. However, he won't get there till the second game. It's not like he's flying to England, not sure why it's taking so long. Well, at least the boy's getting some match practice finally - one silver lining.

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Posted by JC on 2007-02-16 10:46:10

With the time change, flying to NZ takes a while - leave Sydney/mel at 9 am, get there mid afternoon, way too late for a match. Besides he really couldn't get straight off the plane to the field could he? Though thhe way they played it wouldn't have made much of a difference!

Australians can't play the swinging ball for peanuts. Maybe they should train in NZ before the next Ashes!

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Posted by MT on 2007-02-16 20:53:51

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