Cricket: Lee's 'near-beamer' just an accident

Brendon McCullum is hit by a ball from Brett Lee in Wednesday night's thriller in Wellington. Phil Walter / Getty Images

Mick Lewis, Australia's hero on Wednesday night, has sprung to the defence of pace-bowling teammate Brett Lee.

The man who successfully negotiated a pressure-packed final over to deny New Zealand's charge at Wellington, was convinced Lee's near-beamer to New Zealand batsman Brendon McCullum was simply an accident, possibly caused by the dewy conditions late in the evening.

Lee, who also served up a beamer to McCullum in the series earlier this year, was rushed home last night after the team medical panel decided he needed urgent treatment for what they say is a worsening breathing problem.

"He doesn't like doing that sort of thing," Lewis said of the beamer. "No bowler likes those sort of balls being bowled.

"But the conditions weren't great for bowling that night.

"The ball was like a piece of soap. It's hard for a bowler to grip the ball when it's that slippery.

"If you're trying to hurl it down as fast as you can like he does, it only has to slip half an inch and it could go anywhere.

"When the ball's that wet and slippery it's pretty tough for the bowling side."

New Zealand coach John Bracewell was furious after Lee's beamer at McCullum earlier in the year, but on this occasion opted for more discretion, telling reporters in no uncertain terms that he would not be addressing the incident.

"I commented on it last year and I don't need to comment on it this year," he said. "You want to put that in quotation marks? Circulate it."

Australian physiotherapist Errol Alcott said yesterday that Lee was troubled by a breathing problem caused by a narrowing of the nasal canal, possibly a throw back to May, when he was admitted to hospital with an infection in the same nostril.

Lee has been replaced in the squad by Queensland left-arm paceman Mitchell Johnston.

"Brett just noticed an increasing difficulty breathing through his nose," said Alcott. "The problem was that it was hard to breathe; there's no pain or anything else involved, it's purely a medical type condition that needs to be addressed."

Alcott said doctors apparently saw a narrowing of the nasal passage that was restricting air, but believed a correction would, at worst, probably only entail day surgery or a short medical procedure.