Waugh may play county, has reservations about Pakistan

SYDNEY, Aug 6 AAP - Australian captain Steve Waugh today revealed he was considering offers to play English county cricket in a bid to get some match practice for the upcoming Test series against Pakistan.

Waugh said all the Australian players would probably have reservations about playing in Pakistan after six people were killed in a shooting today, but at this stage Waugh said they had to assume the scheduled three-Test series would proceed in that country in September.

Waugh felt being out of the Australian one-day side at the moment was not an ideal preparation for the Test series against Pakistan.

"It's particularly hard if you're not in the one-day side at the moment because you are not sure how you are going to prepare for the Test match series and when it's going to be or where you are going to play it at," Waugh said today.

"It's not an easy time to prepare because you'd like to know what type of wicket you're going to be playing on.

"At this stage we've got to assume we're going to be playing in Pakistan."

Waugh said he would be happy to go to Pakistan if it was deemed safe but stressed the players would rely on information from other sources.

"I think every one (of the players) would have some slight reservations after what's happened in the past, it's only natural," Waugh said.

"You've really got to be guided by High Commissions and those places tell you what the feeling is, whether it's safe for tourists to go there. In conjunction with the board you've got to make a decision whether you're going to go or not."

Waugh said he had talked to a couple of English counties over the last couple of days.

"There's an opportunity there to go and play county cricket, so that would be a possibility because there's nothing back here and it's not a good preparation going into a three-Test series against Pakistan not playing a game of cricket."

Waugh said he would never give up on getting back into the Australian one-day team, but said realistically it would be a difficult task.

If he misses out on the World Cup early next year, Waugh would be available to play for NSW in the first-ever one-day cricket match at Telstra Stadium.

NSW chief executive David Gilbert today hoped for a record ING Cup crowd of around 20,000 for the match against South Australia at the main Sydney Olympic venue on February 16.