IN the age of spin doctors, manipulators of public opinion who first burst into prominence in the United States, a nobler art of deception is flourishing in the cricket-playing countries of the world. After 20 years of battling for survival against a battery of ever-faster bowlers, top batsmen are falling like ninepins to the wiles of a new breed of spin bowlers. The best of them are leg-spinners, and the greatest exponent of the art is the 27-year-old Australian, Shane Warne. A few days after the spin doctors have been rendered redundant by the end of the longest election campaign in British history, Warne will be landing on these shores at the outset of Australia's campaign to retain the Ashes over a series of six Test matches.

Spin doctors work in the murky darkness of the political arena, but Warne will draw crowds wherever he goes. He is a young man in a hurry. He has already taken 240 wickets in a little over 50 Tests. It is conceivable that by the time he is 30 he will have taken more Test wickets than any other bowler ever. But he does not fancy dragging out his career until he is 35 or 40. In an interview with a Melbourne newspaper he has hinted this could be his last Ashes tour. In another four years he may have packed his bags for the last time.

He will be greatly missed if this turns out to be the case. But he will not be forgotten, even if he never bowled another ball. A generation of youngsters are turning to spin, not just in Australia. Warne has brought excitement back to world cricket and shown that the apparently gentle art of slow bowling can be the deadliest weapon in a team's armoury. We cannot say the same of spin doctors. Indeed the less we say about them the better.