Yao Ming will start for China against Germany in the Stankovic Cup tonight, coach Jonas Kaslauskas said yesterday.

"Yao will play the match for us and he will be included in the starting team," he said during a training session in Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu Province.

It will mark Yao's first appearance in national team since last year's Asian Championships in Doha, Qatar, where he led the team to the trophy.

The 7-foot-6 centre for the Houston Rockets, who missed the China Basketball Challenge in Guangzhou last week, suffered a foot fracture in his team's 85-83 loss to the Utah Jazz on April 11, when he was fouled by Andrei Kirilenko as he scored on a rebound.

He underwent foot surgery the same week in the United States, and doctors said he would be sidelined for around six months and miss out on the World Championships in Japan starting August 19.

Yao began personal training after returning home on June 26 and joined the team's training camp earlier this month.

"His recovery is quite good, I think he is getting back his shape day by day," said Hu Jiashi, vice-director of Chinese Basketball Association.

Without Yao's dominance inside the paint, China has lost seven warm-up matches in the past month, including losses of 47 and 46 points to Spain and USA.

The final warm-up before the Worlds, the Champions Cup starts tonight with China versus Germany, who are led by Dallas Mavericks star forward Dirk Nowitzki.

(China Daily August 11, 2006)