Cricket: Injury rules Lee out

Australia pace bowler Brett Lee has been ruled out of the second Ashes test after failing to recover from the rib injury that forced him to miss the first, captain Ricky Ponting said last night.

Lee pulled a muscle in a warm-up game prior to last week's drawn opener in Cardiff and now sits out the Lord's test, which starts tonight (NZ time).

"He didn't train with us yesterday, he won't be available for selection for this game, we obviously needed him to do a bit more bowling than that before this test," Ponting told reporters.

"Hopefully, he'll come up for the tour game between this and the third test (at Edgbaston starting on July 30)."