Ricky Ponting couldn't help but laugh when told Shane Warne had offered to come out of retirement if the phone call came asking the spinning great to don the baggy green again."Why does he always do this the day before my press conference," Ponting said yesterday.
"I haven't spoken to him recently. Has he rolled his arm over at any stage?"
Told Warne had bowled four balls recently, Ponting replied: "That will put him in good stead for back-to-back Tests in India, although he probably landed every ball on a 20-cent piece."
The appetite for a Warne comeback not only illustrates his freakish ability and popularity, but the depth of the problem facing Australian cricket.
There is no doubt Australia's spin crisis is dire, with occasional Tasmanian off-spinner Jason Krejza and more occasional Victorian leg-spinner Cameron White vying to make their debut in the first Test against India in Bangalore today.
Leg-spinners age better than most cricketers and, even at 39, Warne would still be far better than any of Australia's options. However, Australia will not return to a former champion who gave up first-class cricket last year to concentrate on his new career as a poker player.
Warne now needs to bowl no more than four overs a match during the six weeks a year of the IPL Twenty20 tournament in India.
As captain-coach, he led the Rajasthan Royals to the first IPL title in May.
"That's not our focus at the moment obviously," Ponting said of Warne.
"If we were going to entertain that ideal we would have done it before now.
"I haven't spoken to Warnie at all about making a comeback. I'm pretty sure nobody has.
"He's said a number of times he's happily retired.
"Our challenge is to find the next spinner in Australia who is going to be good enough to win us a few Tests or play a role in the team to help us win a few Tests.
"Unfortunately, with Bryce McGain going down (injured) here it's put us under a little but more pressure.
"We've got two younger guys in Krejza and White who will hopefully play well and do a job for us in this series. One of them will be wearing the baggy green cap, so there will be a great challenge for our spinner going into this Test."
Launching his latest book in London this week, where Warne listed his top 100 players, seemingly on the basis of mateship rather than ability or achievement, he said: "If the call comes I will consider it."
Bathing in the media spotlight, Warne continued: "I'm fit enough. I'm probably fitter than I have ever been at the moment."
The reality is while John Howard may no longer be a member of parliament and the Liberal Party may be in opposition, the former Prime Minister has more chance of returning to lead the country through its financial crisis than Shane Warne does of solving Australia's spin crisis.
Yesterday, Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland dismissed the chances of a Test comeback for Warne.
"Shane is happily retired as far as I understand," Sutherland said. "I see him quite regularly, and I know that he has got enough on his plate without thinking about Test cricket - that's the end of the story really.
"He has certainly given people something to write about, but he's good at that."
The frustration in Sutherland's response to the ever-present Warne question only highlights the dilemma that, despite his domination of international cricket for a decade-and-a-half, no prodigy has appeared from the thousands of young players who were inspired by him to take up spin bowling.
Rod Marsh, who was in charge of the Australian cricket academy for 11 years from 1990, claimed that the fact Australia had failed to produce another front-line leg-spinner as Warne's legacy highlighted the difficulty of the craft.
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