Uniform landscape in need of a turner

It is an abiding anxiety. Unfortunately, it is now entering at least its third decade and there is little indication of much easing. The question is, as so often in the recent past: whither English spin bowling? The answer, in this wet summer of all summers, is probably up the creek without a paddle, let alone a wrist or a finger worthy of the job. With all due respect to the admirable incumbent, Ashley Giles, and his presumed understudy, Richard Dawson, who is only 21 and wise beyond his years, England lack a match-winning, opposition-worrying spinner. Often have, always will at this rate.

There are many reasons. Pitches built for seamers conspire with an unwillingness to allow young spinners time to develop, and lead to a reluctance to practise the skill, allied to which too many coaches know too little about the subject. The upshot is grimly inevitable.

Present good intentions might one day prevail, yet then along comes a season like this. Damp conditions and moist pitches militate against spin bowling. Who would throw the ball to any of them and suggest they win the game? The Met Office say that this will be the wettest summer for decades, which may not therefore even allow for two months of decent spinning time towards its end.

It is not, it really is not, for the want of trying. For a long while, too long we know now, it was a neglected art. Lip service was paid intermittently to spin but nobody was dashing about sending emails on the subject. Eventually, the mistake was realised. All over the world, top-flight twirlers emerged: Shane Warne, Muttiah Muralitharan, Saqlain Mushtaq, Harbhajan Singh, Anil Kumble. The England and Wales Cricket Board's men are now rushing around with the zeal of the converted.

Duncan Fletcher, England's coach, is quite frank about it. Unless and until they unearth a bowler of genuinely high pace or a spinner with a bit of mystery, England will not win consistently, regularly and convincingly because they will struggle to bowl out the opposition twice often enough. Nobody is round the next bend.

"We are on a mission to find a wrist-spinner who can win matches for England," said Graham Saville, the ECB's development of excellence manager. "We have instituted a programme which is well under way and is aimed not only at finding them but nurturing them and discovering more after that. But there still exists the problem of persuading coaches at club level that they must be allowed not only to bowl but to bowl bad balls. Without that they won't improve."

For three years, the ECB have been engaged in the quest for a wrist-spinner with the considerable aid of the former Australia leg-spinner and the guru who guided Warne, Terry Jenner. He will be here this summer looking at the next batch of 12-, 13- and 14-year-olds.

"It seems a slow process and it is, but I have been amazed by the number of young wrist-spinners who are about in this country," said Saville. "It is what happens to them that is one concern. Terry's presence alone should help to avoid their disappearance. But there is no doubt that there is also a shortage of people to teach them because nobody knows how to do it." Jenner's task for three seasons now has been to whittle down to two about 150 wrist-spinners who appear at various coaching clinics around the country in January. The procedure leads the most promising 20 or so to a four-day specialist school at Taunton each August. All they do is bowl wrist-spin at each other.

The outstanding pair are selected for specialist winter coaching in Australia. There have been five so far (one having gone twice). "They're all still twirling, they all still have promise but it's too early to say that we've found the one," said Saville. The Yorkshire teenager Mark Lawson is both talented and committed. When Jenner went from clinic to clinic around the country, Lawson followed him, driven by his parents. He is a boy who just wants to bowl. It is what can make a bowler, above all a leg-spin bowler. Lawson is spoken of with guarded optimism.

The fact still remains that the last world-class spin bowler that England turned up was Derek Underwood. He was different, too, quicker than most and a cutter of the ball as much as a turner.

Graham Dilley is a former England fast bowler who is now an assistant England coach as well as director of Loughborough University Centre of Cricketing Excellence and who, coincidentally, played with Underwood. "The man who changed the perception of spin bowling was Shane Warne, because he is a genius," said Dilley. "They don't come along often but the crucial thing is that you have to let them develop. The world over, their role is changing.

"As a coach you can't give them special favours, they have to be good enough to get in the side, you have to think of the team's balance. But spin has to have a place in England, and all the while you are looking for that somebody special you are also teaching the others, which should make spin bowling generally strong."

Wrist-spin is the ECB's favoured option, though there has been scant sign of it. Only two practitioners, Ian Salisbury and Chris Schofield, are around the English county scene regularly. Both have been awarded Test caps, although the first, agonisingly, was probably not quite up to it and the second was picked too soon on a wing and a prayer and still might not be quite there.

Nor is there any great history of English spin. True, every county used to have one, true, one of its exponents, Tich Freeman, is the second greatest wicket-taker of all time and knocked over county batsmen for fun. But he was thought good enough to play only 12 Tests. Old habits.

Finger-spin remains the staple diet, and that, too, lacks encouragement. Graeme Swann, the Northamptonshire all-rounder who bowls off-breaks, was a student at the National Academy last winter. What he must have wanted above all were surfaces to bowl on this summer. Even Wantage Road, where they have followed a deliberate policy of giving some turn to spinners as matches progress, could not have come up with the goods in 2002.

Giles will continue plugging away for England, Dawson might presumably prefer somewhere more conducive than the seamer's haven of Headingley to learn to master his craft. The temptation is for your eyes to light up with expectancy every time you see a spinner. It is a reaction too often shared by batsmen for other reasons.

At least, England are now on the case, but they need more people onside yet. They need coaches and captains down the pyramid, they need pitches and pitch inspectors. And they need the weather gods.