Lee may require surgery

Brett Lee, the injured Australian fast bowler, may undergo surgery in a fortnight to repair ankle tendons so severely torn they sheered off part of the bone they were attached to. Ruled out of the World Cup with the ankle injury, Lee saw an orthopaedic surgeon yesterday, but as he told The Australian: "The surgeon hasn't ruled out an operation after tests showed there were also bits of loose bone floating about".

Lee, 30, failed medical tests - including the simple task of standing on his toes - on damaged ankle ligaments and was replaced in Australia's World Cup squad by Stuart Clark. "I couldn't undergo those exercises, there's too much pain there. There was absolutely no chance of me playing in the World Cup.

"The specialist asked me to go up on my tippy-toes and try and get my weight bearing on my left ankle.... I just couldn't do it. And with me being a fast bowler, landing on my left foot and putting so much pressure through my left ankle... to try and rush that and almost put [my recovery] into a four-week period, it just wasn't going to happen.

Lee turned his ankle while performing a routine fielding drill before the first Chappell-Hadlee Trophy match against New Zealand last week. Lee, who has 267 wickets from 150 one-day internationals - 22 of them taken during the 2003 World Cup in South Africa - will not be able to resume bowling for two to three months.

"Now it's a matter of letting the ankle settle down and give it a chance to heal. There's a possibility too that in two or three weeks' time there might be some surgery to clear out some old bone [chips] floating around the ankle. Get it cleared up and be back for next summer."

Others on Australia's disabled list include Andrew Symonds and Matthew Hayden. Symonds had surgery on his right shoulder and told his team-mates he is "feeling great", but he and Matthew Hayden, who fractured his toe during his unbeaten 181 against New Zealand last week, could miss the early pool games but are expected to be ready for the latter stages.

Terry Alderman, the former Australian fast bowler, feels Symonds may never return to 100% fitness after injuring his right bicep. "My worry with Symonds is not just for this tournament but also the rest of his career," Alderman told BBC Sport. "It's a major surgery that he's had and a major injury that he suffered."

Alderman's concern was that the repair on Symonds' ruptured tendons could affect his role as a fielder: "We know what happened to [former Australian fast bowler] Jeff Thomson all those years ago when he collided with Allan Turner. He was never the same bowler. And I've got a feeling the injury might take the edge off Andrew Symonds' fielding."