Stuart MacGill joins England’s Ashes team as mentor to rising leg-spinner Mason Crane

BEN Stokes is gone, but Stuart MacGill says there’s another wildcard in the England pack and he has revealed he will cross the Ashes trench to mentor him.

Test legend Stuart MacGill has joined the enemy.

BEN Stokes is gone, but Stuart MacGill says there’s another wildcard in the England pack and he has revealed he will cross the Ashes trench to mentor him.

The Australian Test great has no qualms about working with the enemy this summer, declaring 20-year-old leg-spinner Mason Crane is the attacking weapon England should be backing in to turn the Ashes on its head.

Bearing a striking resemblance to the action that claimed MacGill 208 dazzling Test wickets, Crane made extraordinary history earlier this year when under the Australian spin master’s tuition he became the first Englishman to play Sheffield Shield cricket for NSW since the 1880s.

Test legend Stuart MacGill has joined the enemy.

MacGill has a close relationship with the ECB through former Test spinner Peter Such and has relished the opportunity to work with a range of up-and-coming spinners England have sent out to him in Sydney – with Crane’s rise last season from grade cricket at Gordon to a Blues debut and now the Ashes squad the greatest success story to date.

Plans are in place for MacGill to once again link up with Crane, potentially ahead of the series start in Brisbane next month and then when the exciting leggie arrives in Sydney for the New Year’s finale.

MacGill has no mixed feelings about helping Crane as he fights to put back into the craft he believes can reignite England’s Ashes hopes and Test cricket at large.

PREVIEW: 50 greatest Ashes moments

NO FLY ZONE: Stokes won’t travel to Australia

BOOF: Ashes No.6 spot up for grabs

“It’s really funny, you would think so. Obviously I’d really like to see Australia winning as often as they possibly can, but when you bring it back down to a personal level, I’m not playing. It’s not really my team. So if one of my mates does well for another country (I want to enjoy in that and help),” MacGill told The Sunday Telegraph.

“Steve Smith captains his T20 team in the IPL, he’s helping cricketers from other nations in much the same way as I am and he’s captaining Australia. I don’t see a great issue for me.

“Picking an attacking spinner like Mason is the kind of approach teams playing Test cricket need to adopt. In Australia, we’ve got good wickets and you can’t wait as long for the other team to make mistakes. You’ve got to tactically and skillfully make inroads yourself.

“I remember Maso bowling a wrong-un in the nets (for NSW) and it was a great ball … and Eddie Cowan came out of the nets and said, ‘I’ve got one question: how do we get him qualified for Australia before next summer?’”

Countless England spinners have made the long trip to Australia and perished, but MacGill believes there are some key qualities that set the unassuming kid from Sussex apart.

Mason Crane can be England’s match winner.

MacGill has no hesitation in declaring Crane is armed with a better wrong-un than the one he famously called on during an excellent career forged in the same era as Shane Warne.

There is also something tough about Crane, according to MacGill.

“There’s a lot to like about Mason. It’s not just his bowling. He’s modest and enthusiastically confident, and he loves bowling well,” said MacGill.

“After such a great season here with Gordon and playing for NSW, he went back home and didn’t play first-class cricket, so this is a guy who as Australians we like because he didn’t stack on a tantrum.

“When he has got his opportunities, he’s grabbed them. To get into the England Test squad through T20 cricket is fantastic and his T20 and 50 over results for a 20-year-old are quite spectacular, I think.

“Despite his age, he’s not been given everything to him on a plate. He’s had to work for it and he’s had to be patient and that’s really added to the sheer weight of wickets he’s amassed.

“He deserves an opportunity to be in this squad.”

MacGill says the key to his coaching of young spinners isn’t that he can draw on the experience of succeeding at Test level, but that he also knows what it’s like to struggle.

“I’m a bit different to Warnie and Mason for that matter. I didn’t play regular fist-class cricket until I was 26. I know what it’s like to have a bad day with the ball and I know what it’s like to have people comparing you to the best,” he said.

Stu grasses one at the SCG. Picture: Phil Hillyard

“There’s a lot of things we can work on together.

“We bowl slow, so if you have a bad day it can be pretty ugly and it can be pretty exposing. That’s why I enjoy helping kids out, because they’re the ones that are particularly exposed.

“That was a very, very big move from NSW to pick a young English kid. Even despite the weight of numbers at first-grade level, it was a big move. We have contributed to his rise as well which makes me very proud.”