At the end of 2010 Brett Lee looked like a write-off after a chronic ankle injury had kept him out of the international game for 14 months. Had you written back then that he would return at the World Cup to be his side's leading wicket-taker and 18 months on would be back in England at the age of 35 needing only three more wickets to overtake Glenn McGrath's 381 (380 for Australia and one for the ICC World XI in 2005's World Cricket Tsunami Appeal match at the MCG) to become his country's most prolific ODI bowler, "fanciful" would have been the most generous of adjectives. And yet here he is, still leading the Australia attack into Friday's match at Lord's, the most exuberant of elder statesmen, combining his duties as spearhead with a mentoring role for the whirlwind tyro Pat Cummins, who was six years old when Binger made his Australia debut in the Boxing Day Test against India in 1999.

This is no sentimental prolonging of a career simply to bag a record either – when have Australia been guilty of such indulgences, unless you harshly count Steve Waugh's farewell tour in 2003-04? Since his comeback Lee has taken 55 wickets, 16 more than his closest rival Mitchell Johnson, and at an average of 23.52 which compares favourably with his pre-2010 figures of 23.01 runs per wicket.

After Australia won the first Test of the 1999-2000 series against India by 285 runs, Steve Waugh played a rare Shield match for New South Wales against Western Australia in Perth. With such a huge margin of victory, any thoughts of strengthening the side seem sadistic, yet as Waugh wrote in his autobiography the captain was always keen on pulverising the opposition. "I was mesmerised by the pure artistry of a young quick named Brett Lee," he wrote of his new Blues team-mate.

"Like Warney years before in Zimbabwe, I knew straight away this kid was special; 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 matchwinner. I caught up with selector Geoff Marsh at the conclusion of the 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'."

So, out went Michael Kasprowicz and Lee was called up for his debut, taking a wicket with his ferocious fourth ball, then dismissing Rahul Dravid and routing the tail with reverse swing to end with five for 47. The length of the run was intimidating enough but what he could do with the ball was far worse, making it rear up at a batsman's throat at more than 90mph then threatening to shatter their toes with viciously inswinging "sandshoe crusher" yorkers.

Australia won by a mere 180 runs at the MCG but his six wickets in the next Test in Sydney helped Australia to victory by an innings and 141 runs, taking VVS Laxman's scalp in both innings, the second after the makeshift opener's glorious 167 off 198 balls.

Lee was the epitome of almost comically unfettered impending menace at the end of his mark in those early days, conjuring up the image of a cartoon bull pawing the turf with a hoof to signal an imminent charge. His captain was frank about his use of his weapon, employing him to make "fragile opponents fold".

During the Adelaide Test against South Africa in 2001 he subjected the final pair Makhaya Ntini and Nantie Hayward to a brutal assault in one over, clouting Ntini twice in succession on the badge of the tailender's helmet then targeting Hayward's adam's apple as the batting rabbit retreated to the legside while being taunted to "Face up like a man, Nantie".

A year later Lee hit Alex Tudor with a fiendish bouncer that drilled in between the Englishman's helmet peak and visor, poleaxing him and lacerating his brow. "I know Brett Lee has a reputation as a tearaway quick who doesn't mind hitting the odd batsman, but when he saw blood he turned deathly pale and could barely utter a word," wrote Steve Waugh. "He kept on asking Alex: 'Are you OK, mate?'" Therein lies the contradiction at the heart of targeting a tailender, albeit one with a top score of 99 not out. Bowlers launch their attack with a kind of barbarous frivolity then once the all too predictable consequences of their actions are revealed contrition strikes home. Tudor left the Waca on a stretcher and, sadly for him as other injuries dogged his career, never played another Test.

For all his bogeyman antics with the ball, however, Lee was never perceived as a scoundrel by fans of other teams during Australia's age of dominance. He has a natural ebullience to go with that twinkle and a broad smile which absolve him of malevolence. His sheer joy in the game, manifest in his irrepressible wicket celebrations, conveys an essential unconceited likeability.

Having retired from Tests a couple of years after playing his last in 2008 with a haul of 310 wickets, he focuses solely now on the short form in which Lord's has always been a happy hunting ground. In six matches there, two against Pakistan, he has 17 wickets at 13.82 and on his last visit in September 2009 took five for 49, clean bowling Matt Prior, Luke Wright, Stuart Broad and Adil Rashid with trademark speed and bamboozling swing. That mopping up of the lower order was reminiscent of his spell during the 2003 World Cup in the Super Six stage against New Zealand when he skittled the last five batsmen in 15 balls, "a vulture bent on supper" as the Almanack had it.

This incarnation of the Spin is a sentimental soul but Lee's current worth to his team transcends nostalgia. "He's been the face of fast bowling for a while in Australia," Cummins told Cricinfo this week. "His raw pace and always being a great competitor … it's hard not to look up to him as a kid. He's everything that a young pace bowler wants to be." At times he's been expensive, at others clinical but he's always been fast and exuded enjoyment in his work.

Frank Tyson once wrote: "To bowl fast is to revel in the glad animal action, to thrill in physical power and to enjoy a certain sneaking feeling of superiority over the mortals who played the game." While we cannot be certain of the third sentiment in Lee's case, he certainly transmits the first two to all who watch him. Long may his "twilight" endure.

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