Lee bowed to the inevitable Friday and conceded defeat after failing medical tests on damaged ankle ligaments and was replaced in Australia's World Cup squad by Stuart Clark.

"The surgeon hasn't ruled out an operation after tests showed there were also bits of loose bone floating about," Lee was quoted as saying in The Australian newspaper Saturday.

Lee has been the enforcer in Ricky Ponting's one-day team, the paceman called on to take wickets even if he can be expensive at times.

Lee's strike rate of a wicket every 28.94 balls is second only to New Zealand speedster Shane Bond (27.04) in limited-overs cricket and is better than both Australian modern-day bowling greats Glenn McGrath (35.17) and Shane Warne (36.32).

The pace ace was told he had no chance of recovery from serious ankle ligament damage in time for the World Cup after failing the simple test of standing on tiptoes.

"I couldn't undergo those exercises, there's too much pain there. There was absolutely no chance of me playing in the World Cup," he said.

He was initially given a deadline to prove his fitness right up until the day before the team's first Cup game.

"The specialist asked me to go up on my tippy-toes and try and get my weight bearing on my left ankle.... I just couldn't do it," Lee told The Daily Telegraph.

"And with me being a fast bowler, landing on my left foot and putting so much pressure through my left ankle... to try and rush that and almost put (my recovery) into a four-week period, it just wasn't going to happen."

With no guarantees that Lee, 30, will return to his fearsome best, the Australian team's bowling stocks are now looking thin with Warne retired and McGrath to follow after the World Cup.