Brett Lee has become a symbol of how hard it is in the modern game to sustain a career as a pace bowler He is the last in the line of bowlers who stretched every sinew to hurl the ball down at breakneck speed, practically wrenching his body apart with every delivery. He is one of only three men - the others are Shoaib Akhtar and Shaun Tait - to have got the speedometer past 100 mph, and all have now gone from the international game. Although it is one of the ECB's stated missions to produce a new generation of bowlers who can get a ton up (not in their bowling analysis!) it is a very difficult task. Fast bowlers are born not made, in the same way that you can either run fast, or you can't. And the demands on players now - especially bowlers - and the microscopic analysis of opposing players means persistence and control is more important than busting a gut. Speed is not everything, as proved by the ease with which Nick Knight dealt with the first ever 100 mph ball from Shoaib. Lee was always on the rapid side of fast. On his first tour to England in 2001 he was part of possibly Australia's best attack ever, with an opening pair of Glenn McGrath and Jason Gillespie, and Shane Warne to wheel away tirelessly and mercurially from one end, while Lee rumbled in from the other. He cut an intimidating sight - marauding in from afar, arms like pistons propelling him to the crease to unleash the red missile. With a low arm and of only medium height, he rarely generated excessive bounce but instead targeted the stumps, uprooting them with shattering regularity. More than a third of his international wickets were bowled or lbw. Lee's determination to bowl relentlessly fast was not just visible on the field. He overcome a litany of debilitating injuries with a remarkable fitness ethic - I remember on one tour of England he built up his leg muscles and stamina by running around with a large parachute strapped to his back (just as well it wasn't this summer as he would have taken off and never been seen again...) His bowling was still touching 90 mph this year which few if any 35 year-olds could ever claim. And, contrary to many a miserable old bowler with a stiff back and creaking knees, Lee was always smiling. He looked as if he enjoyed bowling fast which is not an easy impression to pull off. Even in that famous two-run defeat at Edgbaston, consoled by the victorious Flintoff, he had a glass half-full countenance. He was also the symbol of how hard it is in the modern game to sustain a career as a pace bowler. There were the injuries, the admissions that, in the midst of an intensive schedule of tests and one-day internationals in the mid 2000s, he was running 'on a sniff' (he meant his tank was almost empty), the eventual retirement from Tests to prolong his international presence, and now the decision to play only lucrative T20 competitions. The Indian Premier League is an ageing international cricketer's pension (if they're lucky) and fast bowlers deserve a final payday more than most. And even in the IPL in his fading years he will give it everything and be a compelling sight. On his epitaph might be 'would never lie down.'