Shane Warne has promised Hampshire fans aggressive cricket - starting against Durham at the Rose Bowl tomorrow.

The legendary Australian leg-spinner will captain Hampshire for the first time when the county begin their championship season.

And the man with 517 Test wickets has called on his side to produce performances of a quality befitting the Rose Bowl.

The 34-year-old will be making his Rose Bowl debut for Hampshire, his first appearance at the ground since playing in Australia's two-wicket defeat against the county in 2001.

Warne said: "It's an honour and a privilege for me to captain Hampshire and I'm going to do it to the best of my ability.

"The goal of every county in the Second Division is to get promoted and what you're going to see is exciting and entertaining cricket.

"As captain I like to play a pretty aggressive brand of cricket, we'll be playing to win from ball one, I know that much.

"We're not going to be playing to draw and save games.

"Everything about the Rose Bowl is exciting but we haven't performed as we should have done over the last few years, it's time to start delivering.

"We've got the talent to do it we just have to be consistent in our performances.

"We've got no excuses. The facilities are excellent, the off-field staff and the coaches have done an excellent job to get the guys prepared. And you just have to look at the ground to see what an excellent job Nigel Gray, the groundsman, has done - the pitch is in an unbelievable condition.

"Everyone is itching to play, which is always a good sign, and it's just a matter of waiting for Friday.

"It's a good opportunity for us to play a home game first up and hopefully people around the county will come down and support us."

Warne is one of only five survivors in tomorrow's squad of 13 from the Hampshire side that played in his county championship debut match in 2000 - the county's last season at Northlands Road.

He added: "I'm confident in the squad we've got, there are some new faces, we've got a good list of players to choose from and selection has been tough.

"There are probably 15 to 16 players that that could have been selected for the first game so it's not been easy, which is a nice thing to have - it's better that than trying to get 11 players together."

Warne, refreshed after his year's suspension for taking a banned drug and fresh from a superb series for Australia in Sri Lanka, will be working alongside first team manager Paul Terry throughout the season.

"Hopefully myself and Paul Terry can get the best out of the guys, that's our job," he said.

"I haven't had to do much so far but we've had some good meetings and Paul has done a great job in getting the players ready."

Warne's Test match commitments are likely to rule him out of Hampshire's Twenty20 Cup group games in July as well as four Totesport League games.

But he is set to miss just one county championship match, against Nottinghamshire at the Rose Bowl in six weeks time, when, as things stand, Australia will be touring Zimbabwe.

But if he ends his retirement from one-day international cricket, he could miss three championship games and six Totesport League games.

"I haven't made a firm decision whether I'm out of the one dayers or not but at this stage I'm still retired," added Warne, who admitted there may be a need for Hampshire to re-appoint a vice captain, a role that was dropped by the county last year.

"That's something I'll discuss with Paul, we may decide we want a different captain for each form of the game or just have one when I'm away."