Recovering from a successful shoulder surgery that will keep him out of competitive cricket for at least four months, ace Indian spinner Anil Kumble on Thursday regretted that he would be missing the important series against Australia.

"The problem has come at a bad time," Kumble said referring to the Australian cricket team's tour of India beginning next month.

From his bed in a private clinic in Johannesburg, Kumble told PTI he was "feeling much better" though it was too early to say when he would be able to play competitive cricket.

Kumble said recovery would be a gradual process and it would take him four to six months to be fully fit. He would be in South Africa for two weeks.

Asked when the shoulder trouble started, Kumble said the niggling problem had been there for a long time but it had flared up during the ICC Knock-Out tournament in Nairobi and then at Sharjah during the tri-nation series.

Sounding cheerful, the 30-year-old Indian bowling spearhead said "I am very keen and raring to get back on to the cricket field. "I am in safe hands. I am sure I will get perfectly well," he said and cited his teammate Javagal Srinath, who was operated upon for a similar problem by the same Dr Mark Fergusson, as an example.

© PTI