'We don't feel like retiring"

At 35, Stuart MacGill is nearing the end of his career and knows he will have limited opportunities over the next year as one-day cricket dominates the playing schedule. During a break in camp at Coolum he spoke to Peter English about his time left in the game, late-career action changes, appreciating Australia's current superstars and the Ashes threat of Kevin Pietersen

As an experienced spinner, how much do you tinker with your action?
It is definitely changing, but it's largely been due to technology. Shane Warne and I are completely aware of every little aspect of our bowling. We know probably more of the physical component of legspin bowling than anyone before us. Look at the super slo-mo replays. You would never have thought that unless a batsman hits the ball in the bend the bat turns in their hands. We now know our position inside out.

How do you apply the new knowledge?
I know if I change my front foot position I might have to compensate with the rotation in my action. If you tie your shoelace up too tight it's chaos theory. It's a real lot of complex mumbo-jumbo for bowling legspin, but I know that my bowling is not just affected by one thing. If I am getting older and I have shoulder pain, or finger or back pain, I can make up for it in other parts of my action. Like rotating a little bit more or a bit less.

It's great information to have and it really helps me deal with issues out on the field as well. You don't feel exactly the same all the time. What's important for any young bowler is that you might be feeling a million bucks today and bowling great, but you've got to prepare for the moment where you're not feeling great. And age is one of those things.

So you're trying to upgrade your bad days to average ones?
You try to make it that you're not just relying on your third finger. You are relying on your entire body to produce the result that you need. Then you can make up the other parts in the rest of your action.

How much time should a bowler spend in the nets?
When you're developing you should bowl everyday. Not for long, say up to half an hour. In the cricket season, even in the club scene, you've got one big bowl a week, so you really don't need to do much more than that. Once the season has started, if I've been bowling a lot in games, I won't do much in the nets. If I've been bowling well I'll bowl one or two balls, if they come out well I'll just go on bowling well.

If I'm not bowling well I might have to work on something for a little while. But there's no point bowling badly for an hour as that's only going to cause problems. I'll sort a few things out, try and squeeze out a few really good overs and then bail out again. Every time I pick up a cricket ball I want the last experience of it to be positive. Even if it's just one ball.

Who is England's biggest danger for a slow bowler?
Kevin Pietersen is one of the best players of spin in the world. He's got a long stride and he sweeps well. He's got a very long reach and his arms move very freely and in a very wide arc. I think he's definitely one you'd try to avoid bowling to. I played with him for three years at Nottinghamshire and he's one of the best players going around because he can win a match.

During the Bangladesh tour it seemed a lot of the older players were thinking it was time to retire. Now the mood seems to have softened
I really think the Australian public should be aware of the fact that next year there's not many Tests. In the calendar year Australia are not playing much [Sri Lanka and India are due for home Test series in 2007-08 but the next tour is probably to Pakistan in February 2008.].

We need to be aware of that because we're not going to see many of those guys for much after that, just because of opportunities. We're not just talking about playing the series this year, we're talking about waiting another 12 months before they play again. Some of them could be approaching 40. We don't feel like retiring, I'm certainly not even close, but it's going to be a long time before I play regular Test cricket.

Any idea who is going to retire?
We've talked about it a lot and I don't think anyone knows. If you're thinking about it now it will affect your performance through the summer. If somebody toyed with it and they got three or four hundreds in a row or three or four five-fors in a row then I'd say they'd probably keep playing.

Stuart MacGill has taken 198 wickets in 40 Tests at an average of 27.20