Warne takes a veiled dig at Murali

Shane Warne, who holds the world record for the most wickets in a calendar year, believes the "cheap" offerings in Test cricket will limit the length of his new mark. While not naming Muttiah Muralitharan, who is Warne's closest rival on the overall wickets list, Warne told The Australian he expected his new record to be overtaken soon.

"It would be nice if it [the new record] lasted another 25 years, but I don't think it will," Warne told the paper after passing Dennis Lillee's 85 victims. "There's a lot more cricket being played these days and you have teams like Zimbabwe and Bangladesh in there, with some teams playing them a lot more.

"I've never played a Test against Bangladesh and only one against Zimbabwe, but there are some teams out there that play them a lot. And some blokes bowl at one end all day against those sort of countries and take lots of wickets. I'm sure that whoever those people are, they might get it [the record] next year," Warne said, leaving little to the imagination about the identity of the principal contender for his record.

Muralitharan, who has a tally of 578 Test wickets, has 34 dismissals in four matches against Bangladesh and 89 in 14 Tests against Zimbabwe. Warne will have a chance to play his first Test against Bangladesh when Australia makes its first tour there in April 2006.

Warne attributed his 2005 tally to his decision not to play one-dayers and its beneficial effects on his body. "The demands of one-day international cricket come because there are so many tournaments of three weeks or so here and there," Warne said. "In international cricket, it's the back-to-back games and all the diving and throwing at training. In one-day cricket, you need to be good in the field, you need to dive around and have a good, flat throw. I hardly throw at all now, so that keeps my shoulder strong.