Warne suffers minor burns in cooking mishap on BBL eve

Shane Warne has suffered serious burns to his bowling hand a mere five days from the Melbourne Stars' first match in the Twenty20 Big Bash League, placing his fitness for the start of the tournament in some jeopardy.

The burns, which Warne relayed to the world via a graphic image on Twitter, were sustained in a cooking accident.

His team was due to take part in a practice match on Monday, though the Stars have indicated that Warne was not scheduled to take part in the fixture.

"Not ideal preparation for practice match today-burning the bowling hand Get better quickly please,any suggestions-HELP," Warne wrote. "Ps no more trying to be a master chef ! Stop and by a bacon roll on the way to the ground next time - silly Shane !"

Cameron White, the Stars' captain, said Warne was confident he would be fit to play on Saturday.

"I saw his hand and I saw the pic on Twitter as well - it's one of those things, it looks a lot worse than probably what it is," White told reporters. "He said to me in the rooms before that he's pretty sure he'll be able to bowl on Wednesday and 100 per cent confident he's going to play on Saturday as well.

"It's just part and parcel of Warney. The boys are really looking forward to playing with him and what he brings to the table - from burning his hand cooking a bacon sandwich to everything that he'll do out on the ground."

Warne's mishap was not the only drama to envelop Melbourne's two T20 teams in the days before the start of the BBL.

Another Star, the Tasmanian allrounder James Faulkner, suffered a dislocated finger in the field during the practice match, while the Renegades' Brad Hodge has suffered a hamstring injury. Simon Helmot, the Renegades coach, said he felt "sick" after confirmation that Hodge had suffered a hamstring tear.

"Obviously when one of your main men go down, it's disappointing," he said. "He was a bit dejected at the time, he was really disappointed. But he's a competitor, he'll do everything possible to get himself right as soon as possible."