Brett Lee playing for Australia 2008
Brett Lee (photo not quite cour­tesy of Wel­ling­ton Crick­et)

The Black Caps™ may be pants (tech­nic­al term) but there’s at least one reas­on to look for­ward to the Sum­mer crick­et sea­son: the Wel­ling­ton Fire­birds have signed Aus­sie super­star Brett Lee as their second over­seas play­er for the year.

Accord­ing to the Wel­ling­ton Crick­et web­site, Lee will play the second half of the HRV Twenty20 com­pet­i­tion from 14 Decem­ber, includ­ing the final (should the Fire­birds make it that far).

Also in the side will be Eng­land inter­na­tion­al Luke Wright and, as there’s no clash with the New Zea­l­and inter­na­tion­al sched­ule, all the Black Caps are avail­able (let’s hope they don’t drag the stand­ard down too much).

As I walked through the Basin this after­noon, there were Fire­birds prac­ti­cing in the new pur­pose-built nets above the Ron Bri­er­ley Pavil­ion. I’m now ready for Sum­mer, thanks.