After Glenn McGrath’s retirement, Brett Lee stepped into his shoes as Australia’s premier pacer with astonishing ease and since then he hasn’t looked back. Lee is easily the best pace bowler in the world today and finds his name mentioned among all-time greats by many authors.

Born in New South Wales, the Australian played his debut Test match against India in December 1999. Early in his career he was plagued by injuries and also suffered stress fractures. He was also reported for a suspect action and accused of deliberately throwing head-high beamers at batsmen. He took a hat-trick in the 2003 World Cup in South Africa and, since the start of that tournament, has never slipped out of the top 10 ODI bowlers.

But he had a disastrous Test series at home against India in 2003-04. He was forced out of the team due to an ankle injury for over four months and Michael Kasprowicz’s bowling form kept him out of the Test side for 18 months. Adversity breeds champions and this man left all of it behind to come out as a champion that the cricketing world will remember for a long time.

He found more success at home and in New Zealand and South Africa, where the strips offered more bounce, but lately he has been phenomenal on the sub-continental pitches as well. Lee spearheaded the Aussie bowling attack on the tour to South Africa in 2006 in McGrath’s absence. He unleashed a fearsome spell of pace bowling as he spat venom on the Durban pitch. This, plus his tally of 49 Test wickets in 2005, made him one of the Wisden cricketers of the year.

He suffered a major blow when an ankle injury forced him out of the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean. He returned for the ICC World Twenty20 in South Africa and in a second-round match against Bangladesh - and became the first bowler to take a hat-trick in Twenty20 internationals.

Brett was to lead the Aussie bowling attack after the retirements of McGrath and Warne and many wondered if the additional mental and physical stress would take its toll. But he came up trumps and, in an important home series against India, took 16 wickets at 17.5 to claim the Border-Gavaskar trophy as the man of the series. He was also declared the Australian Test Player of the Year and was awarded the Allan Border Medal for the 2007-08 season.