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He's too good to drop, says Aussie captain

Those Australians presently in the Caribbean thinking the unthinkable clearly don't extend to those who matter.

While more than just a few among the touring Press corps and the hundreds who have descended on Barbados from the bottom side of the globe for the third Test are shaking their heads and wondering whether Shane Warne is really worth a place in the 11, captain Steve Waugh has stoically stood behind his man.

``He's the best leg-spin bowler in the history of the game,'' Waugh said as he and his Australians prepared for the critical match at the Wanderers club ground. ``Just because he hasn't taken a couple of wickets in a couple of games doesn't mean he's not going to play.''

To be precise, Warne has taken three of his 316 Test wickets in the three matches since his return following an operation on his bowling shoulder last September - two in the fifth and final Test of the Ashes series against England in Sydney in January, one in the first Test of the present series in Port-of-Spain and none in the second in Kingston.

The other statistics prompting furrowed brows among Australian fans are the 83 overs they have required and the 239 runs they have cost.

If they bother Waugh, it doesn't show.

``The guy knows how to do it,'' he said. ``He's still bowling pretty well and I've just got the feeling he's starting to rise and peak in the last week or so.

``You've got to back a guy who has taken over 300 wickets and I'd like to think that if I fail in a couple of games with the bat, I won't be dropped for the next game,'' the captain added.

Warne has been spectacularly upstaged by fellow leg-spinner Stuart MacGill in all three Tests since his return. MacGill claimed 12 English wickets in Sydney and three West Indians each in Port-of-Spain and Kingston.

As Waugh has indicated, both will play again in this Test alongside the fast bowlers Glenn McGrath, who has taken five wickets in each completed innings so far, and Jason Gillespie, with the support medium-pace work likely to be the responsibility of the captain himself and Ricky Ponting in the likely absence of Greg Blewett.

Blewett was tending a bruised, swollen and painful right hand yesterday after he was struck by a ball from Gillespie, a fellow South Australian, in the nets on Wednesday. He was the preferred No. 6 in the first two Tests, reclaiming his place after he was omitted throughout the Ashes series. If unfit this morning, Ponting would take his place.

These Australians have fond memories of Kensington. Seven Waugh and brother Mark, Blewett, Warne, McGrath, Michael Slater and Ian Healy - were in the 11 that won the first Test in 1995 by ten wickets and went on to regain the Frank Worrell Trophy 2-1.