New Delhi:  Australian pace spearhead Brett Lee, who is currently on his maiden Test tour to India, admitted that it has been very tough for him and his mates to bowl here in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy and said the series would serve as a great learning experience for the team.

Australia started the tour with a very inexperienced bowling attack and Lee was identified as one of the two key bowlers but so far, the speedster has performed rather ordinarily against India.

In the three Test matches so far, Lee has picked up only seven wickets at an average of 57.71 and with a strike rate of 105 balls per wicket.

Both he and Stuart Clark, who was identified as the other key strike bowler prior to the tour, have between them pocketed only nine wickets.

Lee accepted that bowling in India, especially in a Test series, was a totally different experience, although most of the players had earlier played in some format of the game in India.

''It's hard work in India,'' he admitted. ''We want to take 20 wickets. We aren't experienced playing over here on Indian soil, I know we've played a bit of one day cricket over here but it's totally different from the longer format of the game.'' ''We have learnt so much, but I know personally, the way the ball swings around, different things we tried, we were on a bit of a learning curve.

''The bowling squad we've got now is great, we'd like to keep that going past the Ashes,'' he added.

He further conceded that the Australian bowling attack has the potential to claim 20 wickets and a superb bowling display from his team's bowlers is just round the corner.

''Even further on, you've got to trust the guys around you and trust that we are, as a bowling group, not far away from taking those 20 wickets,'' he said.

UNI

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