Yao Ming is itching for a return to the basketball courts while bemoaning the poor run of form of the Houston Rockets in the NBA.

"I am not resting here doing nothing ... I am reviewing the team's tactics everyday," Yao told home TV station Shanghai TV's PowerSports program.

"I have to be back in top form as soon as I return and cannot afford to miss out on the team's strategy. I expect to return very soon, probably in a couple of weeks time, and help out the team."

Yao, a Shanghai native, is nursing a nagging foot injury since December.

Lamenting the ill luck affecting the team, Yao commented in a lighter vein: "I really should suggest to the coach to take the entire team to some temple and pray between the games.

" I have never faced this kind of situation in my past three years at the NBA and our team therapist says he had never run into such a huge injury list in the last decade.

"We have to fight hard for victories even when all of us are fit ... you can imagine how much the team is stretched right now."

Rockets, tipped as a favorite to win the championship before the season opened last November, is now struggling in the West Conference. They have been crippled by a series of injuries to their star players like Tracy McGrady and Bob Sura besides Yao.

At one point, the number of players on the injured list rose to as many as seven that clearly affected their run to the playoffs.

On Monday, McGrady returned to thump in 41 points against the Milwaukee Bucks to snap Houston's seven-game losing streak.

(Shanghai Daily via Xinhua News Agency?January 25, 2006)