Lillee happy for Warne to break record

Dennis Lillee says Shane Warne deserves his record for the most wickets in a calendar year and won't be sad if it gets passed during the first Test. Warne enters Friday's South Africa match with 84 victims for 2005 and needs only two to pass Lillee's 1981 collection.

"It's all his. He deserves it," Lillee said in The Courier-Mail. "He can come and get it. There isn't a bit of sadness there for me in passing on the record to the greatest bowler we have seen. I have always really enjoyed Shane's career and what he has brought to the game."

Lillee, the Western Australia Cricket Association president, will be at the WACA and should get a first-hand look if Warne can make some breakthroughs on his least successful Australian ground. Warne's role in Perth is as a support bowler to the fast men and he has taken only 26 wickets in ten Tests.

"We have always got along well and he has had to overcome a lot of setbacks to get where he is," Lillee told the paper. "He has had an amazing career and I am really looking forward to being at the WACA when he breaks the record."

Lillee's incredible 1981 included 85 wickets at 20.95 in 13 matches with Test series against India, England, Pakistan and West Indies. In the first Test against West Indies he broke Lance Gibbs' world record of 309 wickets with first-innings figures of 7 for 83.