When I stagger out of bed each morning, the first thing I do is head towards the computer. A quick scan of the email over a cup of industrial-strength coffee is usually followed by a quick glance at a couple of web-sites.

One of them is Cricinfo where, some time after 5:30 on the morning of Monday 2 June 2008 I learned that leg-spinner Stuart MacGill had announced his retirement, and that gave me something to ponder over the course of the hour-long morning walk.

First up, I guess this means that I can look forward to more episodes of the excellent Stuart MacGill Uncorked TV series.

I must admit that I approached it with considerable reservations. MacGill is not, according to the reports I see, the most easy-going member of the Australian cricket fraternity and there was the not entirely inconceivable possibility that, regardless of how much he likes wine, he might be out of his depth when it came to turning out an informative wine show.

Fortunately, I was wrong.

Not only does the man they call MacGilla come across as a nice bloke with a genuine interest in wine and a keen desire to learn more about the subject, he has also served up a show that bears re-watching when the Favourites listing on pay-TV fails to provide an acceptable alternative. Hopefully, the retirement from international cricket will give him the opportunity to pursue what could well be a lucrative media career. The guy’s fairly articulate and comes across well on camera, so there’s no reason why that can’t happen.

All these shows work to a format and MacGill’s first round of shows was no exception. In Stuart MacGill Uncorked he picked one Australian wine region, visited half-a-dozen wineries, coming up with a recommendation from each after he’s had a chat to someone from the place. He was able to find enough variations on the routine to make each show different enough from its predecessor to maintain a degree of freshness in the formula, and there’s no reason why he couldn’t apply the approach beyond half a dozen episodes.

There are, according to the map in the front of James Halliday Australian Wine Companion 2008 edition, enough wine regions to cover all the letters of the alphabet, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to cover a dozen or so each year. That’s an appropriate number for a wine show...

Each of the major wine regions is large enough to allow an annual visit without visiting the same wineries over and over again, and a visit to a couple of the less well-known regions would provide an interesting contrast to the big boys.

Predictably, media coverage of MacGill’s retirement ended up focussing on the cricket side of the story, and has tended to concentrate on the fact that the guy was unfortunate to play in an era when spin bowling world-wide was dominated by the figure of one S. K. Warne.

Of course, if Warne hadn’t been there, MacGill would have played many more tests and taken way more than two-hundred-and-something test wickets. And with Warne on the scene, the presence of a genuine all-rounder who bowled above medium pace might have made the Australian selectors more inclined to select both spinners.

But, on the other hand, MacGill’s retirement leaves me, at least, gazing at the horizon and wondering What happened to all the spin bowlers?

Back in the eighties I was looking forward to the day when we’d see a swing away from the dominance of fast bowling at international level. I’d hoped that whichever spin bowler was going to turn the established pecking order on its head would actually come from Australia but suspected that the subcontinent would be a more likely source.

There were plenty of them emerging from India and Pakistan without going on to dominate international cricket away from home.

So when the chubby Victorian emerged on the scene and didn’t immediately force his way to prominence, I had the feeling that we’d unearthed another promising talent that was more than likely going to go the way of so many others - a bowler who’d be called into the side for Tests on Sydney turners and tours of the subcontinent.

Fortunately he must have shown enough to persuade the powers that be to persist with him, so that by the time Warne was hitting his straps in the nineties people were talking about the multitude of Australian kids who would be seeking to emulate Australian cricket’s golden boy.

So where are those kids now? What happened? With MacGill out of the way, where is his successor?Is it Beau Casson? What happened to the highly-touted South Australian duo of Dan Cullen and Cullen Bailey?

I suspect there are a number of factors at work - interrelated but identifiable factors that suggest it could well be a long time before we see a specialist spin bowler as a close-to-permanent member of the Australian cricket team.

First off there’s the small matter of wrist-spin. It’s not easy.

Some people just can’t get the combination of wrist and finger action that sends the ball whirring through the air towards the other end of the pitch. It’s much easier to go down the finger-spin route, and if someone does bowl wrist-spin, it takes a lot of work to perfect it to the point where the bowler can land the thing consistently where you’d prefer it to go. A lack of consistency in line and length is in the nature of the beast.

So the second factor in the lack of a new Warne on the horizon is Warne himself. Over the years we’ve forgotten Warne was, for a wrist spinner, endowed with an uncanny ability to land the ball on a sixpence time and time again.

That collective amnesia has produced unreasonable expectations of up and coming wrist spinners, at least as far as the kids themselves, their parents and fellow players are concerned. I suspect when it turns out that the kids can’t drop six balls an over on the spot and turn them all viciously Mum and Dad to pat the youngster on the head and commiserate that some things just weren’t meant to be.

Which brings us to a third factor - coaches and selectors, who are, you would have thought, exactly the people who would be able to reassure all those Mums and Dads that Little Johnny or Jenny has the sort of talent that could develop into something promising with a little effort and encouragement.

Given Warne’s uncanny accuracy, there’s probably also been a tendency for the experts to write off anyone who doesn’t land the ball in good areas consistently. And to get to the point where the bowler is doing that, the tendency seems to be to look towards bowlers who deliver the ball out of the front of the hand, rather than someone who spins it over the top of the wrist. Associated with that there’s the tendency to look for finger-spinners who’ll send down darts - flat little slow-medium pacers that the bat can’t get under and hoist away.

So, after a brief attempt at bowling wrist or finger spin, I suspect that kids say to hell with this and try to reinvent themselves as Big Hairy Quicks charging in off a run-up that’s longer than most people’s holidays.

Of course there are guys like Terry Jenner and Ashley Mallett heading around the country doing their best to promote the art of spin bowling, but I can’t help feeling that they’re trying to push water uphill with a forked stick until something happens to force coaches, selectors and captains to encourage the aggressive use of spinners who flight the ball, spin it as hard as they can and aim to take wickets rather than deliver an economical spell while the fast bowlers are getting their breath back.

I have a nasty feeling we’ll be waiting a long time.