Experienced Lee still has the need for speed

Brett Lee believes he is now a craftier bowler than at any time in his career, but despite being 34 he is not willing to compromise his speed. Australia's captain, Ricky Ponting, last week described Lee as the glue that held Australia's World Cup attack together, although he has only three wickets from three games, while the spoils have been greater for Shaun Tait and Mitchell Johnson.

But that is no reflection on how Lee has bowled. He has been accurate and miserly, and is enjoying being the leader of the attack, having spent more than a year out of Australia's side due to injuries throughout 2009 and 2010. He could have been forgiven for reducing his pace in an effort to prolong his career, but Lee is confident he has plenty of speed left in his armoury.

"I'm still out to bowl fast," Lee said. "I said about six months ago that if I couldn't hit that 150kph mark I wouldn't want to be playing cricket, which is the truth. I do thrive on speed. I enjoy the pace, I enjoy seeing the stumps fly. That's the exciting part of cricket."

However, on the slower pitches of the subcontinent, which Lee knows well, having made "40 or 50" trips to India over the years, he has found some variations that help him when the pace off the pitch doesn't. And it has worked - Ponting believes Lee is bowling as well as he ever has, even if the wickets have gone to the other fast men.

"[I'm] more likely to be a bit more cagey as a bowler now, a bit smarter," Lee said. "As batsmen are working on new shots, lap sweeps, reverse lap sweeps, we as bowlers have to be evolving as well - slower-ball bumpers, wide-line yorkers, those type of things. It's just about fine-tuning your trade and being a bit smarter when you bowl."

Lee has given up first-class cricket to concentrate on lengthening his career in the shorter formats and since his return to the ODI side in January, he has taken 14 wickets at 25.28. His role in the World Cup attack is to be the steadiest of the three pace bowlers, and he said although all three of them could hit 150kph, they each offered Ponting something different.

"If you look at the way we've bowled collectively as a group, we've bowled very well as a pace unit," Lee said. "What we've got is we actually complement each other. People might think that we're three guys that can bowl 150kph and we're all playing the same role, but we're completely different.

"We've got Mitch that does what he does first change, we've got Taity that can fire the ball in in the first couple of overs. I try and do what I do at the top and try and lead from example. It might look as though we've got three guys that are bowling similar stuff but it is quite different. We've got a great balance in the side with Shane Watson as well, he's been bowling well, and Jason Krejza."

The Australians have two wins and a no-result from their three games so far, but could jump to the top of the Group A table if they beat Kenya and Canada as expected in Bangalore this Sunday and Wednesday. Michael Hussey has joined the squad and will be available for the Kenya game, while the standby fast bowler Dirk Nannes is expected to fly in early next week.