Spin has been a major topic of conversation over the past week.

England will head to the Ashes series in Australia with two off-spinners, Shoaib Bashir and Will Jacks, the latter an all-rounder whose batting has always been his strongest suit but having developed with the ball, especially in limited overs matches.

More established practitioners, such as Jack Leach and Liam Dawson, were ignored by the selectors. England appear to have moved on from Leach, their number one choice when Ben Stokes enjoyed his early successes as captain, and Dawson made an unimpressive return during the India series. Both are left-armers and few of those have enjoyed much success down under.

Closer to home, Surrey fielded Indian leg-spinner Rahul Chahar in their final Rothesay County Championship match of the season – against Hampshire at the Utilita Bowl – amid the same sort of criticism they faced when hiring Bangladesh’s Shakib Al Hasan last year for a one-off match.

Chahar’s ten-wicket haul did nothing to quieten that, for obvious reasons.

Whether you think it’s right to introduce players for individual matches, Surrey could point out that they have used fewer overseas players than all but one team in this year’s Championship first division, not including any in some matches. Would their critics prefer them to fill two berths on each occasion, as regulations allow?

Perhaps a more pertinent question is why, amid the plethora of fine cricketers which have come through the county’s youth pathway in recent years, they have been unable to unearth a frontline spinner?

Their seam-heavy attack, on pitches designed to help at the Kia Oval, can take much credit for three successive Championship titles, a run which finally ended last week when Nottinghamshire built on their 20-run victory by claiming top spot for the first time since 2010.

But there were signs last year that Surrey’s gameplan was being rumbled and this summer – helped by the hot and dry early weather in the opening stages – the lack of variety has made wickets harder to come by.

Amid the ironies, another is that both Bashir and Jacks came through the Surrey youth system – playing much of their early cricket at Guildford, alongside another Ashes tourist in Ollie Pope – but the former could not find a place in his home county’s professional playing staff and instead moved to Somerset. He looks set to move on from there now, given Leach and all-rounder Archie Vaughan have blocked his passage.

Jacks has been so busy playing international and franchise cricket that he rarely gets time to play first-class cricket, a lack of which could make it that much harder for him to make an impact in Australia.

But the Surrey pathway has thrown up Ralphie Albert, whose left-arm spin made an immediate impact in the match against Hampshire. He can bat as well, as he showed in making 96 in the Metro Bank Cup against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge in August – Surrey’s highest List A score in a maiden innings – followed by a crucial half-century at the Utilita Bowl.

Albert, like all young spinners, is likely to find his progress impeded by so much of the first-class programme being played in the early weeks of the season, the latter largely dominated by white ball competitions. You can only wish him good fortune.

By Richard Spiller