The Melbourne Stars are confident captain Shane Warne will overcome hamstring soreness to lead them in Saturday night's Big Bash League clash with the Hobart Hurricanes at the MCG.
The 43-year-old felt a twinge during Wednesday night's win over the Perth Scorchers at the WACA ground and did not train with team-mates at the MCG on Friday.
"My preparation for tomorrow's game will be stretching and leg swings in the pool," Warne tweeted.
"(The) hamstring will hopefully pull up well tomorrow and be ready for our big game against the Hobart Hurricanes."
Opener Rob Quiney expected the skipper to play.
"He saw the physio and it should be right to go," Quiney told reporters after training.
Regardless, deceptive Sri Lankan quick Lasith Malinga is expected to be the biggest threat to the in-form Hurricanes batsman after his stunning 6 for 7 against the Scorchers.
Quiney hoped Malinga would get an early crack at Hobart's middle-order star pair Travis Birt and Owais Shah.
Birt was the competition's top-scorer last season and Englishman Shah fourth, with the pair again combining to steer the Hurricanes to a comfortable win over Brisbane in their opening match this season.
"It would be nice for Malinga to have a couple of overs against those two because I think those two are the key to their batting line-up," Quiney said.
The Hurricanes will welcome retired Test great Ricky Ponting into their team after he missed their opening match through illness.
Shah said Ponting would be a big asset in numerous ways but particularly to give some tips on how to handle Malinga.
"He was amazing the other night," Shah said of the Sri Lankan.
"He's a class act, but at the end of the day he's a bowler and we've just got to try and cope as well as we can against him and use our experience.
"We've got the likes of Ricky Ponting in our team now who can share some experience on how he would have played Malinga over the years that he's played.
"He's probably faced him the most out of all of us, so we're looking to Ricky."
Stars: Shane Warne (capt), Jackson Bird, James Faulkner, Peter Handscomb, Scott Henry, Brad Hodge, David Hussey, Clinton McKay, Lasith Malinga, Glenn Maxwell, Rob Quiney, Cameron White, Luke Wright.
Hurricanes: George Bailey (capt), Tim Paine, Doug Bollinger, Travis Birt, Xavier Doherty, Evan Gulbis, Michael Hogan, Jason Krejza, Ben Laughlin, Ricky Ponting, Owais Shah, Scott Styris, Jon Wells.
AAP
Tags: sport, cricket, twenty20, melbourne-3000, hobart-7000 First posted December 14, 2012 16:28:25
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