Hampshire captain Shane Warne has achieved almost everything in cricket but still has one major regret - he has never led his country in a Test match.

Test cricket's greatest wicket-taker, Warne, left, is currently playing in his 115th match against New Zealand in Brisbane and yesterday took his tally to 545 with a 4- 97 return in the visitors' first innings at The Gabba.

Mark Waugh and Ian Healy are the only players to have played more Tests for Australia without captaining the Test side.

Warne skippered Australia in eleven one-day internationals a decade ago as a stand in for injured skipper Steve Waugh, but he is destined never to be a Test captain.

"I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't have wanted to be captain," Warne said. "I had my chances but unfortunately it was not to be. I would have done a good job. When I captained the one-dayers we played well - my record was good.

"But it's not like I lie awake at night harping on about it."

Nowadays Warne's bowling is helped by his stockpile of straight balls: a zooter, slider, top-spinner and back-spinner - one that drifts in, one that slopes out, and another that doesn't budge.

Yet he seldom lands his flipper, one of his greatest weapons when he was in his prime in the mid-1990s.

"I am bowling as well as ever, bar the flipper," Warne said. "I'm not as confident with it as I used to be since my finger operations. But I'm fitter than I've ever been and I feel confident with my bowling. I will continue to keep going while I'm enjoying it."

After a year's enforced absence due to a drug ban, Warne returned to Australia's Test side in Sri Lanka last March, and snared 26 wickets in just three Tests. He also took 14 wickets in three Tests as Australia won in India for the first time since 1969 last month.