England's Alex Tudor needed six stitches in a cut above his left eye and was sent for a precautionary x-ray after being felled by a Brett Lee bouncer on the WACA's notoriously fast wicket.

The Surrey bowler was struck a sickening blow just below his temple and immediately tumbled to the floor as his helmet flew off. Tudor then lay prostrate on the wicket as the players and medical staff rushed to his aid before stretchering him off.

Fortunately initial fears that the injury was more serious proved erroneous and the England team management are hopeful the x-ray will show no fracture.

But while the sight of a player being stretchered off dampened the Australian victory celebrations defeated captain Nasser Hussain said he had no qualms about the incident, or Lee following up with another lightning quick bouncer to Steve Harmison two balls later which brought resounding boos from the Barmy Army.

"I am disappointed the crowd booed to be honest, I thought that was poor knowledge of the game of cricket because it's a man's game out there," said Hussain.

"Brett Lee I think is great. I enjoyed facing him out there, although I'm sure Tudor's probably not saying that at the moment but it's a great sight for world cricket. I enjoyed the contest and I'm sure that Harmy (Harmison) one day, when he's stopped shivering, he'll tell his grandchildren that he enjoyed the contest," added Hussain.

Australia captain Steve Waugh has himself been stretchered off a Test ground, and admitted: "I've been part of that myself and it's not nice."

He said he was sympathetic to Tudor's plight but said injuries were a natural by-product of playing Test cricket on one of the quickest wickets in the world.

"It's always terrible to see someone seriously injured, particularly not knowing the extent of his injury at the time. We knew it was around his eye somewhere and you do get scared and frightened with the possibility of someone losing an eye. He was fortunate that it was just above it but that was only pure luck that I guess it missed his eye.

"I said before the start of this match that it was going to take courage and there was going to be some tough stuff and there would be some injuries. You know that this is the fastest pitch in the world, there were quick bowlers on both sides and there was always going to be a lot of bumpers.

"There was a lot during this match and the odds are someone's going to get hit at some stage, you just hope it's not going to be serious. Fortunately if you look back on it now I don't think it is too serious but at the time it didn't look very good."

That's not quite how the massed ranks of the Barmy Army saw it, especially when Lee revved up again to bounce Harmison, leading one wag to blurt out: "There are two teams out there but only one is playing cricket" in an ironic parody of Bill Woodfull's infamous comment during the 1933 Bodyline series.

1 Dec, 2002