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Interested persons who want to write articles may volunteer by e-mail to naavi@vsnl.com
Impact of Brett Lee's Exit on Australia
Naavi
The unfortunate withdrawal of Brett Lee from the Australian squad due to ankle injury has the potential of significantly affecting the World Cup chances of Australia. For the last few months before Australia hit the rough patch in the last 5 matches, Brett Lee has been a significant factor in the aggressive march of Australia as world cup favourites. Apart from his wicket taking ability he had positively turned around many matches with his timely contributions with the bat which left the opposition uneasy. until he was at the crease.
Compared to Shoaib Akhthar, Brett Lee has been a highly motivated member of the team who was liked all-round and contributed to the overall confidence of the team. He had largely weathered the fall in Mcgrath's form in the recent days and assumed the lead role in the bowling department.
Having stated that Brett Lee's loss is a significant loss, the person who replaces him is Stuart Clark who was not expected to be left out in the first place. The selectors had preferred Tait instead of him in the initial selection which perhaps was a calculated risk. Probably it would have backfired. Coming in of Clark is therefore a good replacement for Brett Lee and hold the balance of the bowling before Lee's exit. Australia will however regret that both Lee and Clark could not share the bowling responsibility.
In consideration of the replacement of Lee with Clark, we have not made any change in the weightage given to Australia in the Naavi rating scheme. The bowling weightage remains at 1.2 which means that any batsmen's performance against Australia will be worth 20 % more than his performance against India.
Naavi
