Warne to fly home for check-up

Shane Warne will return to Australia for precautionary medical checks on his bowling shoulder later this month, his personal assistant announced.

Helen Nolan said Warne would leave his English county side Hampshire to go to Melbourne next week to have his right shoulder checked by the surgeon Greg Hoy. He will take advantage of a break in the season during which Twenty20 matches are played to fly home.

"It's just a precautionary check-up," Nolan told AAP. Nolan said Warne's shoulder, which has undergone major surgery twice, had been sore during matches between Australia and Bangladesh in April, but stressed he would not go under the knife.

A spokesman for Cricket Australia denied suggestions that the board was concerned about Warne playing county cricket ahead of the Ashes, arguing that he was getting enough rest. "This is an example where he's skipping some Twenty20 matches to return home," the spokesman said. "Heavy workloads are more of an issue for the guys who play all three forms of the game." Warne has played only Test cricket, apart from the 2005 tsunami appeal, since retiring from ODIs on the eve of the 2003 World Cup.