Brett Lee on trial

David Shepherd warns Brett Lee after he bowled a beamer to Marcus Trescothick at Lord's last July © Getty Images

The Charge
In 2000, Australian fast bowler Brett Lee was accused -- by umpires Venkat and Jayaprakash -- and then cleared by the ICC of having a `suspect' bowling action. In other words, of being a chucker.

Now Lee faces a less career-threatening, but in many ways more insidious, charge: that of being a bean-ball bully. The evidence shows him to have a long record of beamers, bouncer barrages (often at batting `bunnies') and bone-crunching deliveries. So is he guilty of bad sportsmanship; of crossing the line in cricket's etiquette?

The Crime
What exactly is a `beamer'? Technically, it's an over-pitched yorker. Simply, it's a ball that doesn't bounce on the pitch, but which hits the batsman high on his body while descending. It's used occasionally in baseball (where it's called a `bean-ball') and rarely in cricket (where it's called a `beamer'), but always with the same unspoken aim: to hurt or intimidate the batsman.

In cricket, the bouncer (which hits the pitch and bounces past the batsman's head) is legal. The beamer is not.

The Case for the Prosecution
Seasoned former Zimbabwe all-rounder Neil Johnson is first to take the stand: "Can you imagine getting a beamer from Lee at 155 km/h?" he asks.

"It's a horrible, near-impossible thing to deal with, and something that can truly shake up a batsman, probably causing his downfall soon afterwards. There's little doubt in my mind that certain fast bowlers the world over are using the beamer as a devious, deliberate tool to unsettle batsmen ... even if there will also be times when it does slip accidentally out of the hand."

A bean-ball at the head is not a slip. It's a cold, calculated piece of the game Rodney Hogg

Speaking on Melbourne radio, fiery former Australian Test bowler Rodney Hogg adds his voice to the prosecution: "A bean-ball at the head is not a slip. It's a cold, calculated piece of the game. When you release a bean-ball, you are releasing it at a different part of your action. You have to release the ball earlier."

Hogg knows what he's talking about -- he admits that the beamer was part of his own bowling arsenal: "It was part of the game. There was no rule that said you couldn't."

New Zealand coach John Bracewell is far less forgiving. "It's very hard to pick Brett Lee's bouncer. It's even harder to pick his beamer," Bracewell fumed after the Brendon McCullum incident. "It is the fourth time this season that he's beamed one of our guys, and he's been apologetic every time he's done it. That's a lot of apologies."

The Wisden Cricketer columnist Peter Roebuck claims that the McCullum incident was "merely the latest in a series of violent deliveries sent down by a pace bowler at best reckless in his approach and at worst utterly unwilling to remain within long-accepted parameters governing conduct on the cricket field".

The Case for the Defence
Despite the finger-pointing cynicism, there is a feeling that Lee's beamers really are unintentional, and that his apologies are genuine.

"A beamer is a head-high full toss," shrugs bellicose Aussie legend Merv Hughes. "If Brett wanted to hit a bloke in the head, he's good enough to do it."

"He's bowling 150km/h most balls," says Aussie captain Ricky Ponting. "There's a very small margin for error there."

"Brett's one of the few people in world cricket at the moment that is bowling consistently at 150km/h," adds Aussie coach John Buchanan. "You only have to be a fraction out in your action and the ball could potentially go anywhere."

Lee and Brendon McCullum exchange words after a beamer © Getty Images

But it's not only Australians who're willing to stand as defence witnesses for Lee. Former England captain -- and frequent Aussie bunny -- Michael Atherton weighed in with these observations in The Sunday Telegraph: "His visible embarrassment and immediate fulsome apology convinces me that Lee's beamers are unintentional, although other international bowlers doubt that such a quality performer can be so far out of kilter. The other reason for giving Lee the benefit of the doubt is that he is such a demonstrably decent fellow."

South African bowling guru and Eagles coach Corrie van Zyl agrees. "First of all, I don't think any cricketer should ever bowl a beamer," he says. "It's poor sportsmanship. It's a very dangerous thing to do and I think it should be eradicated from the game. It might happen with some guys who have express pace that they get the odd one in, but I'm sure that you'll immediately see if he's doing it on purpose. That's where match referees need to step in, as I'm sure they will.

"Whether Brett Lee does it on purpose ... I don't think he does. And if he does, that to me is just not cricket!"

Having said that, Van Zyl doesn't have a problem with Lee's occasional hardball treatment of the tail-enders. "In the old days there used to be a gentleman's agreement that bowlers who were tail-enders wouldn't bounce each other," he says, "but I think that's gone by the wayside.

"I take myself back to a guy who I played with - Clive Rice, and the feud he had with Carl Rackemann on Kim Hughes' rebel tour. If ever there was a series that in my mind put that gentleman's agreement to rest, that was the series - Rice and Rackemann came hard at each other with bouncers.

"I believe Lee is in his rights to bowl bouncers at tail-end batsmen," Van Zyl concludes. "But I think bouncers should still be a weapon to get a wicket. It can be used as an intimidatory weapon, but at the end of the day the aim should be to get a wicket."

His visible embarrassment and immediate fulsome apology convinces me that Lee's beamers are unintentional Mike Atherton

Lee himself has been quoted at length in defence of his alleged bully-boy tactics. "I tried to bowl a couple of bouncers purely to get him out," he said after terrorising South African No 11 Nantie Hayward four years ago. "I wasn't trying to hurt the fella, or cause any sort of malice. My job is to get him out. There's no such thing anymore as a fast bowlers' union."

"I'm not a malicious person," Lee pleaded after sending Kiwi Michael Papps to hospital. "I don't like to see people get injured. There's nothing wrong with bowling the short ball and nothing wrong with intimidating a batsman, providing you're not out to hurt him. You work on a plan to try and get the batsman out. That's purely what I was working on last night."

But in between the 'fulsome apologies' comes the occasional slip of the tongue: "It doesn't matter if it's an opening batsman or a number 11," Lee told the South African media after denting Makhaya Ntini's helmet. "I just want to get him out. If it takes a bouncer instead of a yorker to do so, then so be it. Besides, I've copped quite a few bouncers in my time."

The Verdict
Not guilty on the `bully boy' charge. Painful as it may seem, Lee is well within his rights to treat an opener and a tail-ender with the same venom these days. After all, this is a game that's becoming more and more skewed in favour of the batsmen.

And in the modern game, where teams have batsmen all the way down the order, and where even a Number 10 or 11 like Monde Zondeki has a Test 50 to his name, there is no 'fast bowlers' union'. A wicket is a wicket - and no-one can afford to go easy on anybody. And Lee, as evidenced in the Ashes, is prepared to walk the walk in manfully standing up to the barrage himself while at the crease.

As for the beamer charge ... the timing of the incidents sometimes doesn't help Lee's case. (It would take an incredibly generous spirit to absolve Lee for beaming Pakistan's Abdul Razzaq after Razzaq had painfully full-tossed him twice.)

But the jury's still out on the beamer issue ... and it will remain so until Andre Nel 'unintentionally' puts Justin Langer in intensive care, or until Graeme Smith 'accidentally' cops yet another Brett Lee beamer right between the eyes.

This article is taken from the latest edition of The Wisden Cricketer's South African edition. Click here for more information.