/ 2 May 2006

Warne denies talk of one-day comeback

Shane Warne has firmly rubbished rumours of an impending return to Australia's limited overs squad. Warne, back in the United Kingdom for the start of a county season with Hampshire, said he had no intention of coming out of his self-imposed one-day international retirement.

Shane Warne has firmly rubbished rumours of an impending return to Australia’s limited overs squad.

Warne, back in the United Kingdom for the start of a county season with Hampshire, said he had no intention of coming out of his self-imposed one-day international retirement.

The Hampshire captain was mystified as to why Australia coach John Buchanan thought he might be ready to change his mind in time for the World Cup next year in the West Indies.

”I must have said it 14 000 times. I have retired and I have no aspirations to return,” Warne said on Monday after skippering Hampshire to victory in their C and G Trophy one-day match against Essex at the Rose Bowl.

”I have to be fair to the squad. There is a lot of cricket ahead in the next year with the ICC Trophy, the VB series and the World Cup and they have to prepare,” the legendary leg-spinner added.

”I have been out of the limited overs team for three years and I have absolutely no desire to come back.

”I have taken 200 wickets in the last two years in Test matches and that is no coincidence. I have been playing better than ever.

”John Buchanan must have misunderstood what I was saying and I know people have been saying that I have been talking to [Australia captain] Ricky Ponting but in Bangladesh there was not much else to do but talk.

”If Ricky said to me at some stage ‘look we really need you’, then I would think about it, but I don’t think it would ever come to that.

”The team has done really well without me and I will be barracking for them in the World Cup, but not playing for them,” explained Warne, who missed the whole of Australia’s victorious 2003 World Cup campaign in South Africa after failing a drugs-test which later saw the 36-year-old Victorian banned from professional

cricket for a year.

Warne, who has taken 293 wickets in 194 one-day internationals, subsequently went into voluntary retirement from one-dayers.

But he did appear in last year’s tsunami charity match between Asia and the Rest of the World in front of his home crowd at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, a fixture controversially awarded full limited-overs international status.

And earlier this year Warne, 37 in September, hinted at a one-day return with Australia by saying: ”It would be nice I suppose to play in the World Cup, but it depends on what I want to do with my Test future.” ‒ Sapa-AFP