Warne won't cut his workload

Shane Warne has no plans to ease off his bowling workload as he faces another exhaustive schedule. Test cricket's leading wicket-taker faces back-to-back tours over the next two months and another season captaining the English county side Hampshire before the Ashes series later this year.

Warne, 36, bowled 335.2 overs in seven Tests - 50 overs more than any other bowler - in the recent southern summer, but he said he would not relax on the county circuit after the tours of South Africa and Bangladesh.

"The game will dictate how many overs I bowl," he said when asked how he would manage his workload ahead of the 2006-07 summer. "If the game is there to be won and we need to bowl to try to win the game then that's what I'll do. I'm going over there 100% to support Hampshire and to lead them the best way I can."

Warne, Australia's Test Player of the Year, has collected 659 victims and bowled 37,967 deliveries in Tests, more than 4,000 more than Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan, the next highest wicket-taker with 584. But Warne, whose career has been threatened by shoulder injuries, was confident about his remarkable ability to keep backing up.

"I had a few little niggles, but I wouldn't have played over 130 Tests if you couldn't get through a few niggles," he said. "When it's your back you've got to be careful, when you're getting pins and needles down your legs, but if you've got to play through those things then that's what you've got to do."

Warne also believes Ricky Ponting can top Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara and become Test cricket's greatest run-scorer. Ponting is the top-ranked batsman in Tests and ODIs and this week capped another outstanding year with his second Allan Border Medal win.

Lara is Test cricket's leading run-scorer with 11,204 runs, Tendulkar is fourth on 10,386 and Ponting is tenth with 8253. "I think you've seen this year what he is capable of," Warne said. "He could break all the records in the batting if it's up to him, if he's still enjoying it and he's enjoying captaining the side and enjoying playing and batting like he is."

Warne said Ponting was tough to dislodge once he was set, and was in the sort of form few players ever reach. "I don't think there's too many guys who have been in this sort of form," Warne said. "I remember Matty Hayden a few years ago, Tendulkar in the mid-90s, Lara in the mid-90s, the form [Ponting's] been in has just been phenomenal." Ponting scored 1544 runs in 2005 and added five centuries against West Indies and South Africa this summer.