Record made Warne lose the plot

Shane Warne lost the plot while trying to break the world record at Bangalore and will "jump off the nearest bridge" if he falls short in the second Test.

After three weeks of claiming he was not overly bothered by being on the verge of history, Warne has finally admitted that the milestone was messing with his mind. He needs only two wickets in the match starting tomorrow at Chennai's Chepauk Stadium to overtake Muttiah Muralitharan's tally of 532.

Warne seemed certain to take the record on the final day of the first Test but, with four wickets up for grabs, lost his concentration after eight unsuccessful overs and was smashed by India's tail. "Human nature takes over," Warne, who bowled 60 overs at Bangalore, said. "You tell yourself you'll be relaxed and patient, and I was for 55 overs. But as soon as the game was there to be won - we all knew we'd win on the last day - my own expectation and everybody else's, the team's, the spectators', was that I'd get the last two wickets and get the record."

Warne will push for the mark at a ground where he had a "terrible game" and finished with the self-estimated figures of "0 for 2000" in 2001. He claimed 2 for 181 in India's two-wicket victory that sealed the series. "You try and tell yourself there's no pressure," he said. "You just go out and play but the other day, I just thought, 'There are four tail-end wickets to get, I only need two of them'. I just thought I'd toil away and toil away but after about eight overs for about 10 runs, nothing really was happening.

"It's a team game but when you get an individual record like that it's a pretty major one so hopefully I can get it this game. Otherwise I'd be pretty frustrated by the end of the five days. I'll be jumping off the nearest bridge."

Warne, 35, repeated his belief that Muralitharan, 32, was going to end up with close to 1000 Test wickets. "If I only hold the record for a week, at least I've got the opportunity to say I was the world-record holder," Warne said. "If I get the record and play a part in winning the series, that'd be great. If I only hold it for a couple of months, so be it."

Asked how long he would keep playing, Warne replied: "If I hadn't had that suspension I'd probably be finishing pretty soon. But having that year off and doing all my fitness stuff, and realising how much I missed the game, I'd like to think I've got a couple of years left."