Lee said the psychological damage Warne could inflict on the tourists by simply walking out on to the field would justify his selection, despite him having been retired from Test cricket for three years.
Lee's comments come hard on the heels of:
■ A group of Queensland businessmen attempting to raise $1 million via public donations on the Bring Back Warnie website to entice him to spin England out.
■ Broadcaster Alan Jones imploring Cricket Australia to pay Warne $500,000 to stand at first slip and captain the team.
■ Australia coach Tim Nielsen not rejecting the idea of Warne being recalled.
■ Dean Jones insisting Warne would return if Cricket Australia granted him the captaincy for the next two years.
■ English bookmaking firm William Hill offering odds of 6-1 that Warne would return for Australia at some stage of the current series.
Lee told The Sunday Age yesterday: "It's not just what he can do as a bowler, it's what he'd do to their batsmen's minds.
Warne, who retired from the Test arena after he helped to engineer Australia's 5-0 whitewash of England in the 2006-07 Ashes series, is 41 and his active involvement in cricket has been restricted to the Indian Twenty20 Premier League where he has captained the Rajasthan Royals
"If it had been a case where Glenn and I could just rock up the night before a game, we might have been able to play for another year or two," said Warne. "However, when you're away from your family to attend meetings, training camps, recovery sessions and all the rest of it, it just becomes too hard."
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