It was in the old locker rooms at the WACA ground when the room started to spin for former Australian fast bowler Jo Angel as he went into shock after being struck by lightning.
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Nearing the completion of one of the most ferocious bowling performances witnessed in Australian domestic cricket, 25 years ago, “Big Jo” was nailed by a bullet from Brett Lee that hurtled into him at faster than 150km/h.
Snap. As former Australian wicketkeeper Brad Haddin noted, so quick was Lee bowling, the Angel from the west did not stand a chance against the tearaway quick whose star was rising.
“The one thing I remember is when he hit Joey Angel right in the arm guard … the ball bounces off and life goes on, but I had a closer look at Jo and his arm was just flopping. Brett had broken both bones in his arm, just with the sheer pace,” Haddin recalled last week.
Angel had played four Tests for Australia and standing nearly two metres tall, he was an intimidating bowler in his own right, former New South Wales all-rounder Brad McNamara said.
“I’m still traumatised by the big bastard steaming in to (bowl to me) me at the WACA,” the Fox Cricket senior producer wrote.
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Angel was tough, too, so much so that when the Western Australian physio and several New South Wales teammates came to check on him, he insisted initially that he was fine to carry on.
It was only when he was unable to pick up his bat that he truly understood something was amiss, though the club physio noted that even the natural tan from years bowling under the WA sun could not camouflage the look of distress on the then 31-year-old’s face.
“I had had broken fingers but I had never had a broken arm,” Angel told foxsports.com.au.
“I thought initially I was all good, because I thought it had got me on the arm guard. I didn’t realise it had got me flush on the arm. The adrenaline was pumping — the physio had come out and a few of the boys had come over to see how I was going — and I was saying, ‘I’m all good. I’m all good.’
“But I went to try and pick my bat up and I couldn’t pick my bat up. And the physio reckons I looked as white as a ghost. And when I calmed down a bit, I went back into the changerooms and the doc was having a look and … I sort of got a bit dizzy and what have you, so I had to lay down. It was not a lot of fun.”
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It was a delivery that sent shockwaves around Australian cricket circles, turning a hype meter already trending upwards into overdrive, Lee said, though he remembers preferring that the discussion had focused on his actual performance in that match.
“Unfortunately, it is one of those moments where an incident like that happens and that gets a lot of attention – there is a young fast bowler coming through and he has broken someone’s arm, or he has bowled quick, or he has picked up a couple of wickets. It often creates a bit of energy and excitement,” he said.
The brutish delivery and Lee’s performance had Australian captain Steve Waugh, never prone to be overly excited, deep in thought as he stood in the slips.
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A SHIELD GAME WORTHY OF INTERNATIONAL STATUS AS AUSSIE STARS CLASH IN THE WEST
The Sheffield Shield game between WA and NSW that preceded Lee’s outstanding debut against India in the 1999 Boxing Day Test is part of cricket’s folklore.
This was truly a star-studded match, with 16 of the 22 players involved earning a baggy green and another couple featuring for Australia in the one-day arena.
A week earlier the Waugh brothers, Adam Gilchrist, Justin Langer and Michael Slater had represented Australia in a 285-run demolition of India in Adelaide to start the Test summer.
But with a decent gap until the Boxing Day Test, the top-liners turned out for what was a Pura Cup match that could have been awarded international status, given the stars who featured.
“That was pretty regular back then. We often seemed to play them when they were at full strength, right from when I first debuted,” Angel said.
“I mean, Mark Taylor was playing in (my first) game, that level of guy, and it was always a good challenge and you always knew they were up for the fight and so were we. We always looked forward to it.”
This was a traditional Western Australian pitch, with the Harvey River black clay soil that gives the WACA its bounce doing the job once again, making life tricky for most batsmen.
NSW batted first, with Slater making 38 at the top of the order, Michael Bevan 75 at No.5 and Haddin 23 as a WA attack featuring Angel and fellow Test representatives Brad Williams and Matthew Nicholson, along with Sean Cary, knocked them over for 182.
Steve Waugh had made 150 against India a week earlier but was trapped LBW by Angel for 9, while Mark Waugh edged Nicholson to Adam Gilchrist for one.
‘MATE, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?’: SLIPS GREAT GETS A WAKE-UP CALL
Haddin can still remember the bemused look he received from Mark Waugh as he prepared to keep to Brett Lee when Western Australia came out to bat late on the opening day.
One of the finest slips fielders cricket has seen, “Junior” was an expert in the cordon and had a point to raise to the NSW wicketkeeper about his positioning on a rain-marred opening day.
“I remember Mark Waugh, who was fielding in the slips, he had just come back to play a Shield game leading into the Boxing Day Test,” Haddin said.
“I took my position and he said, ‘Mate, what are you doing? I am not standing this far back.’ And we said, ‘You can stand where you want. But we have seen him for the last two Shield games’. After about three balls, Junior went, ‘Woah’, and I remember Steve Waugh saying, ‘He is in the next team. I have never seen anything like that’.”
Lee, who had been in Perth a month earlier as part of a Test squad against Pakistan, opened the bowling with Don Nash but was far from an immediate hit as the WA top order sought to establish a decent advantage despite the strength of their opposition.
Mike Hussey, who was yet to play a Test, made 22 opening alongside Ryan Campbell, who hit 66, while Langer batted at No.3 and scored 78.
In the 20th over, Lee struck for the first time by bowling Hussey. A couple of overs later he snared Campbell edging to Haddin behind the stumps.
When he resumed bowling the next day after WA reached 2-117 at stumps, Lee added Damien Martyn to his tally when the classy No.4 edged him to the wicketkeeper.
Some strong resistance from Brendon Julian and Brad Hogg, who became Lee’s fourth victim when snaring an edge that also flew to Haddin, helped WA to a first innings score of 312.
Lee finished with 4-84 from 26 overs and Haddin finished the first innings with sore hands.
“I had played all my junior career coming through with Brett, so I knew he was an exceptional talent and different to anyone I had played with,” he said.
“That game before he got picked for a Test match, I have never seen any fast bowlers with that velocity ever, and (that is the case) still to this day.”
‘THE QUICKEST I’VE EVER BOWLED’: HOW THE FREO DOCTOR GAVE BRETT LEE WINGS
Trailing by 130 runs after the first innings, NSW adapted to the challenge presented by the local fast bowlers in vastly better fashion in the second innings.
Steve Waugh was magnificent, picking up his form from Adelaide to score 128 before Angel snared him for the second time in the match, while Bevan finished unbeaten on 119.
The WA quicks were forced to toil for more than a day as the visitors reached 409, with Angel and Cary taking four wickets each, while Brad Williams snared a couple.
After adding 100 runs on the morning of Day 4, NSW set the locals a target of 280 to win and a draw seemed the most likely result given the calibre of WA’s top order.
But Lee had other ideas. Mindful that almost half of the Australian Test team was playing, he was determined to impress with a view to earning his own baggy green in the near future.
“I was obviously pushing as hard as I could,” he said.
“I was only fresh into that New South Wales team, and then to have that opportunity to play at the WACA and look up at the slips cordon and have Steve and Mark Waugh, my brother Shane, Michael Slater, (it was) pretty much half of the Australian cricket team who I wanted to impress, and most certainly the Australian Test captain.”
The Sandgropers started reasonably. Don Nash took the wicket of Hussey for 13 before Lee snared his first wicket for the second innings when bowling Langer for 8.
Stuart MacGill then took the wickets of the in-form Campbell, who made 58, and Martyn, with both deceived by his flight when smartly stumped by Haddin. The leg-spinner snared Hogg soon after.
Then Lee unleashed with fury. He took a catch off his own bowling to dismiss Gilchrist for 45, and had Julian caught not long after as the prospect of a surprise victory soared.
“It was a day where everything felt good. The body felt good. The spikes were sticking in the crease nicely and there was a lovely little Fremantle Doctor behind me and I went for it,” he said.
“I still think it is probably the quickest I have ever bowled. Brad Haddin was keeping and I have known Brad Haddin for my whole career, and he still thinks it is the quickest I have bowled as well. There are days where you know it feels good and that day felt really good.”
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Gilchrist told Fox Cricket during a chat at the MCG in November it was as brilliant a spell of bowling as you could imagine in domestic cricket.
“Brett burst on to the scene, didn’t he? I had known about Brett through junior cricket – I had played with his older brother – and watched his rise,” he said.
“I think prior to that debut, there was a Shield game just leading up to it and he played for New South Wales against us in Perth (and) he bowled some of the fastest spells of bowling in that game that I have ever witnessed.
“All the big boys were playing — Steve Waugh, Mark Waugh, the Aussie boys were back — and it was just so impressive.”
Haddin kept to and played against speedsters from around the world during his distinguished career, but said none came close to Lee’s pace that day.
“I have been lucky enough to keep to guys like Shaun Tait and face Shoaib Akhtar, but that day was as quick as I have ever seen. It was intimidating,’ he said.
“One ball he bowled, he bowled a bouncer that we all just watched that went over my head and half-volleyed into the fence. Still to this day, it was the fastest bowling I had ever seen.”
STITCHED UP BY A MATE, AN ANGEL IS FELLED
Angel was up for the fight when he came to the crease in the 33rd over with WA at 7-155 on the final day and trying to avoid a loss in a match they dominated for the first two days.
“I always thought I could survive and handle most of that,” he said.
After watching Julian fall in the following over, he was joined by Cary. But it was not long before he was spitting chips as he faced up to blond bombshell Lee.
But it is not Lee with whom he holds a grudge, he joked this week — rather that he was stitched up by his fellow fast bowler Cary.
“The worst thing is that I should not have been on strike,” he said.
“The ball before he had tried to bowl a yorker and I had clipped him down to deep mid-wicket and it was bloody three runs all day, every day, but Sean Cary decided it was only two. And he broke my arm the next ball.”
Angel described Lee as a double-threat given his ability to bowl with a blitzing speed while also swinging the ball in the air.
“It was a normal WACA wicket that had a bit of pace and bounce and so forth, and Brett just bowled bloody brilliantly,” he said.
“He bowled quick but he swung it as well, and that was what made him doubly-dangerous. He went through us like a dose of salts in the second innings.”
But it was not the swing that stitched-up Angel on this occasion, rather the level of bounce he was able to conjure.
Lee stands 1.87m, which is not overly tall for a fast bowler, and as a result his bouncers did not follow the same trajectory as someone like Angel, whose bumpers tended to leap over rivals, particularly on the WACA deck.
“It was short enough but because he is relatively short – if I bowled a short one, it would go over blokes’ heads – but the guys who are a bit skiddy are tricky,” he said.
“Wayne Holdsworth was a bit similar. ‘Cracker’ got me one day in a Shield game early on with a similar delivery – it didn’t hit the arm but hit the edge of the helmet – because it is really hard to get underneath those guys.
“You have to either stand up and play it or sway out of the way. I was trying to stand up and play it but wore it on the arm, unfortunately.”
With Angel receiving treatment in the changerooms, Lee bowled Cary soon after to finish with 4-55 in the second innings.
“He was so unique. That changes the game. It changes your mindset in the game where you have got that fear factor at the other end,” Haddin said.
“I remember keeping and talking to (NSW opener) Greg Hayne in the slips and asking, ‘How would you actually face that? How would you actually get in behind it? What would you try to do?’
“They had a star-studded batting line-up. I think Gilly played, Martyn and Langer as well, Brendon Julian, and they were in awe of his pace too.”
‘I AM NOT A MALICIOUS PERSON’: NO HARD FEELINGS BETWEEN THE QUICKS
Given how dizzy he felt in the aftermath, Angel has no recollection of where he underwent treatment on the broken arm, but suspects it was up the road from the WACA at the Royal Perth Hospital.
But what he does remember was how “bloody uncomfortable” the night he spent under medical supervision was.
“It was a very uncomfortable night, because they have your arm up in a sling upright and I like to sleep on my side, so it is a bit hard to sleep on your side when you have an arm like that,” he said.
Angel, who is now working as a “fly in, fly out” worker in the west, also remembers that he had a visitor the next morning, with the young tearaway quick dropping by to check on how he was feeling.
Now 56 and still involved in cricket in WA, as a bowling coach who also does some work for the WACA in regional areas, Angel said what occurred that day was “part and parcel” of cricket.
“It is one of those things. Brett came in and saw me at the hospital and there were certainly no hard feelings on my behalf, because that is all part and parcel of the game,” he said.
“You are not necessarily trying to hurt anyone. I don’t think there was any great malice to it. I would like to think I’m a nice guy as well, but if you have got a bat and I have got a ball, you are fair game. That is how I looked at it.
“I am sure he looked at it the same way. You don’t survive for as long or be successful if you are not that way. You have got to be a bit ruthless, because it is a battle between you and the batter.
“That is just the way you have to go about it. You can be mates off the field, but once you cross that white line, you have to go hard.”
Lee, for his part, said he still hates the sight of blood and had no desire to harm anyone he bowled to during his career.
“I went around the wicket in order to intimidate a batsman in order to get his wicket,” he said.
“That is the thing. I am not a malicious person. I hated people getting injured. I want to put that on the record. I hated blood.
“The great thing now is that so many batsmen wear the proper protective equipment but unfortunately he sustained a blow to the arm which broke his arm.
“I went later and apologised to Jo Angel and he was fine. He said ‘people get bounced’, but that definitely put a bit more noise around the game than it otherwise would have.”
THE CAPTAIN’S CALL: ‘PICK HIM, OR I’M OUT’
As Angel was having his broken arm tended to and Lee was celebrating his man of the match honours alongside NSW’s 115-run triumph, Steve Waugh was wandering the WACA.
The Australian captain wrote in his autobiography Out Of My Comfort Zone that he was determined to find former Test opener Geoff Marsh, the father of Mitch and Shaun Marsh, who was the national selector on duty at the match.
He had a message for Marsh and likened his impression of Lee to his first take on a Victorian leg-spinner a few years earlier who became a legend of Australian sport.
“I was mesmerised by the pure artistry of a young quick named Brett Lee. Like Warney years before in Zimbabwe, I knew straight away this kid was special,” Waugh wrote.
“He had a twinkle in his eye that belied a killer streak and on the pacy WACA pitch he was lethal. The guy was a match-winner.
“I caught up with selector Geoff Marsh at the conclusion of a match in which Lee had broken Jo Angel’s forearm, terrorised Damien Martyn and Adam Gilchrist and bowled the quickest spell I’d ever seen, and said quite simply but half-jokingly: ‘Swamp, pick him or I’m out, pal! This kid’s raring to go. Don’t waste him — the Indians will hate him’.”
Less than a week later, the selectors headed the captain’s call. Brett Lee was to be unleashed in international cricket against India in the Boxing Day Test at the MCG.
*TOMORROW – Feature #4 in a special foxsports.com.au series recalling the great Tests between Australia and India Down Under will canvas the debut of Lee, who created a sensation as a Boxing Day Test rookie in 1999.
Additional reporting by Nic Savage
