Warne's painful wait

It is probably the most famous finger in cricket - so famous, in fact, that the man who possesses it says he half-expects Madame Tussaud's to take a cast of it when he visits England next year. That's if he does come, of course.

We're talking Shane Warne here, and the ring finger on his right hand - the one that has helped him take 207 wickets in 44 Tests and secure him legendary status as one of the greatest leg-spinners of all time. Now, however, Warne is having to face up to the cost of all that spinning, and the possibility that the damage over five years of intensive use may mean he can never be as brilliantly effective as he has been in the past.

There was an ominous sound to last week's decision that Warne would have to miss Australia's visit to India next month, comprising one Test and a minimum of six one-day internationals, because his finger had not yet recovered from surgery on the ligaments in May. Instead he will be nursing it back to health with continued massage and physiotherapy while hoping to meet the fairly gentle demands of two one-day matches, a fortnight apart, which his state side Victoria play before the start of the Sheffield Shield in November.

Warne sounded reasonably cheerful when he spoke to me after announcing he would not be available for the India trip. "It's not feeling too bad," he said from Darwin in the Northern Territories, where Victoria were in training. "I'd say it was about 50 per cent OK. I hate to be missing any Test for Australia, but I just didn't feel I could go without being able to give absolutely of my best. It wouldn't have been fair on the other lads."

The operation took place after Warne had sought specialist advice in Australia and the United States. "I think the guys did a pretty good job," he said. "But I didn't bowl a ball until last week, and the finger feels very different - very stiff and sore. The last thing we wanted to do was rush it."

Warne, who has just turned 27, said he could bowl all the variations on his stock ball - the flipper, the top-spinner, the googly - without too much difficulty, but his standard leg-break was the one that was causing him pain. About the best he could manage was 10 overs at a stretch, and then it felt uncomfortable the following morning.

The idea is to ensure his fitness for the much bigger challenges ahead - the five-Test series at home to West Indies, the World Series Cup involving Pakistan and West Indies, the three-Test series in South Africa, and finally the Ashes series in England next summer. Warne said he was as confident as he could be of making it to the scene of some of his greatest triumphs in 1993, but "you can never be 100 per cent certain". This is only the second Test Warne has ever had to miss through injury. Let's hope there aren't any more.