The `Cricketer with a Conscience', MacGill confirmed his reputation as an outsider a little over a year ago when he refused to tour Zimbabwe on moral grounds.

The Western Australian had long been on the outside looking in on this Australian set-up, not only for being an unusually undemonstrative figure but more significantly for not being Shane Warne.

It has been MacGill's great misfortune to have conducted his career in almost direct parallel with the greatest leg spinner of all time yet in 33 Tests over seven-and-a-half years he has still shown enough to convince knowledgeable observers of a special talent.

A prodigious turner of the ball, MacGill's negligible batting and fielding skills have prevented more than a cursory appearance on the ODI scene but he has nevertheless enjoyed a successful, if undeservedly limited, Test career.

After a debut against New Zealand and successful tour of Pakistan, MacGill was given his first extended run in the 1998-9 Ashes series.

He claimed 27 wickets in four Tests, including 12-107 at the SCG as cricket's oldest contest once again came to resemble a procession.

Warne's injury problems allowed intermittent chances but it was a 2003-4 drugs ban which allowed MacGill his longest uninterrupted run in the side, another spell when he did more than any other nation would expect from a back-up slow bowler.

He claimed 53 victims in 11 matches including 20 against the West Indies, making him Australia's leading wicket-taker in the series and 17 wickets in two Tests against Bangladesh.

Unfortunately for MacGill and England, Warne has returned refreshed rather than finished by his ban and there has been no talk of retirement despite the advancing years.

The result is that Warne will again take centre stage in this summer's series while MacGill waits upon injury or drastic climate change demanding the use of a second spinner at The Oval in mid-September.

A player whose off-field actions gave England's players so much to think about last year should be largely restricted to a watching brief again this summer.