MacGill sent spinning back into Test squad

Australia has opted to include two leg spinners in its squad for this week's First Test against South Africa, today choosing Stuart MacGill as the slow bowling partner for Shane Warne in a 12-man party.

Speculation has persisted all week about who might be plucked from a relatively threadbare slow bowling cupboard at domestic level to participate in a Test match likely to be contested on a spin-friendly surface at the Adelaide Oval.

MacGill and Victoria's Colin Miller loomed as the two most experienced contenders for a berth but neither has been in outstanding form this season. MacGill's nine first-class wickets for New South Wales have come at the uncharacteristically high average of 49.88, while Miller lost his place in his state team altogether during the most-recently completed round of Pura Cup matches.

The malaise was understood to have had the four-man selection casting the net across a wide range of spin bowling options, even to the point of assessing the readiness of a number of rookies for an unlikely early international call-up.

MacGill last played Test cricket just under 12 months ago, when he snared seven wickets in the Fifth Test against West Indies in Sydney. From 16 matches at that level, he has claimed 75 scalps in total at the impressive rate of 25.02 apiece. He made his Test debut - also against South Africa at Adelaide - four years ago.

If he were to be chosen in the final eleven for the match - which commences on Friday - it would be only the sixth time that MacGill and Warne would have appeared together in the same Test team. It would also be the first time they have been paired in the same side since the 1999 tour of the Caribbean. MacGill has done rather better in those five games, with 24 wickets against Warne's modest tally of seven.

The unlucky player who helps pave the way for MacGill's reinclusion in his country's Test squad is paceman Andy Bichel. The fast bowler was twelfth man for each of the three Tests in the recently-completed series against New Zealand and has played only one match for either his state or his country in the last five weeks. He will return to the Queensland team for four-day and one-day fixtures against Tasmania in Brisbane this week.