It was good that Stephen O'Keefe looked the part in international cricket in his debut in the T20 side during the week - because hardly any Australian fans would have seen him before.

For many, it would have been a case of "Stephen Who?" when they heard that O'Keefe had been called up to replace the injured Nathan Hauritz in the side to play Pakistan in England. Then there would have been, no doubt, many eyes rolled as the magic words - "of New South Wales" - followed his name, because let's face it, it can often seem that the national selectors want to save an interstate plane fare each time the national team flies out of Sydney, by making the newest member of it a New South Welshman.

Certainly the fact that the spin duties against the Pakistanis will be in the hands of Blues team-mates Steve Smith and O'Keefe will fuel that conspiracy theory, but the truth is, the selectors could hardly have picked anyone else.

Only Xavier Doherty of Tasmania really had a show. Currently playing with Australia A against its Sri Lankan counterpart - as was O'Keefe before his call-up - Doherty is a left-arm orthodox tweaker like O'Keefe. The New South Welshman got the nod ahead of Doherty in the first unofficial Test against Sri Lanka A in June and responded with a superb all-round match of 61, 7/35, 47 and 0/48. He followed up with 2/93 in the second four-day game in his only substantial bowl, Hauritz went down with a foot injury, and the rest is history.

It was a shock selection, given that the two games against Sri Lanka A took O'Keefe's tally of first-class games to seven, but the fact is that we now have the second- and third-best-performed domestic spinners from last season in the Test team.

Sadly, the best-performed spinner could not be picked: Victoria's Bryce McGain, who snared 26 wickets at an average cost of 32.5 in the 2009/10 Sheffield Shield season. But at 38, and after one grisly Test outing in South Africa, McGain appears to have had the red texta put through his name by the Hilditch panel.

I say "sadly" because McGain could have been a good late-career Test performer, had he not suffered a shoulder injury prior to the home series against India in 2008. But he missed his chance then, and when finally he did debut, at Newlands in Cape Town in March 2009, he succumbed to nerves and was belted into oblivion by Jacques Kallis and Ashwell Prince.

Although the rest of the world - even the rest of Australia - laughed, that rabbit-in-headlights McGain performance was inexplicable to Victorians, who had seen the late-bloomer become a brave and aggressive big-ripping leggie in the Shane Warne mould. Barely a year after having his confidence and technique dismantled by the rampant South Africans, McGain helped bowl Victoria to the Sheffield Shield title with a trademark performance of aggression and guile.

It was wicket-taking bowling, supported by appropriate fields - and by the fact of a massive lead. But it made me, for one, think of what might have been had McGain managed to debut relatively smoothly in Cape Town, and gone on to feature in the Ashes that year.....oh, for a wicket-taking leggie, England's bane! But it was not to be.

So with McGain's card marked, and given that former Test offie Jason Krejza had hip surgery post-season; that the promising Victorian left-arm orthodox Jon Holland also went under the knife; and that Doherty is playing the short formats with Australia A, the selectors made a logical choice with O'Keefe.

That's not to say that Doherty - at 27, two years older than O'Keefe - would not also have been a good choice. Doherty had a good 2009/10: although he only played three Shield games, he took 12 wickets at 24.25 - by far the best average of any spinner in the competition - and led the Ford Ranger cup wicket list with 20 scalps, playing a major role in Tasmania's title win. Doherty has become a courageous, attacking option in the short formats, and in short, if Nathan Hauritz can play Test cricket, so could Xavier Doherty. But now Stephen O'Keefe has jumped the queue.

The real worry is the decline of Australia's spin stocks since the glory days of Shane Warne and Stuart MacGill. If Steve Smith does prove to be a Test-level spinner, that will gloss over the decline to an extent, because he will play as an all-rounder, and could be picked in the same side as Hauritz or O'Keefe. But after this trio, there are some real problems.

Right-arm offie Jason Krejza has played Test cricket, but did not have a good 2009-10, taking 14 wickets at an expensive 54 apiece, in seven matches. South Australia's left-arm orthodox Aaron O'Brien also took 14 wickets, from ten games, but at an even more pricey 63.42.

This is in fact the story of Australia's spinners: South Australian legspinner Cullen Bailey's four matches yielded nine wickets at 58.44; the 23-year-old Holland, although tipped for future greatness, grabbed just six wickets from three games for Victoria, at 70.66 each; Western Australia's left-arm orthodox, Aaron Heal, took five at 62 in two matches; Queensland offie Chris Simpson dismissed just eight batsmen in 11 games, at 88.87 each; and the best figures after Doherty came from test batsman Marcus North, with 12 wickets at 32.33.

In fact, of Australia's five most recent Test spinners to debut, two - Dan Cullen and Beau Casson - no longer play first-class cricket. Cullen (one Test), an aggressive spinner with a good doosra, has lost his South Australian contract, while Casson (one Test) has battled chronic fatigue syndrome (although he remains in the New South Wales squad.) Of the others, Cameron White (four Tests) appears to have given up bowling; Bryce McGain went wicketless in his only game; and Jason Krejza, after a stellar debut that earned him 12 wickets for 358, was discarded after one more match garnered him 1 for 209. The five of them took 22 wickets between them, in nine games.

The cupboard is not entirely bare. Young (almost 21) Queensland leggie Cameron Boyce impressed in the Sheffield Shield final, with seven wickets, including six in the Vics' marathon second dig; although it would be in everyone's interests to get him out of Brisbane before the Gabba strip holds him back. And reports from the Centre of Excellence indicate that, aside from its young crop of scholars, Cullen and Krejza have been working hard at rehabilitation.

Most of Australia's first-class spinners had good periods in the domestic T20 competition last year, they can all bowl aggressively, but a major problem is twofold: (a) they've got to be selected in the first-class arena, and (b) they've got to be bowled. Teams too often play Shield matches without a spinner, or with one under-bowled one.

Australia has all the requisite infrastructure: there is a specialist spin coach at the COE, John Davison; there are regular seminars; former legends such as Warne, MacGill, Terry Jenner and Ashley Mallett are all tapped for their expertise and thoughts; but we still have a parlous situation when it comes to spinners. It has become a vicious circle: they are not successful at first-class level, so they're not selected, so they can't get success. It is damning beyond measure that there were only two five-wicket hauls from spinners in the Sheffield Shield last year: a 7/64 from Smith and Boyce's 6/181 in the final.

We need Cricket Australia to step in here, and lean on state selection panels if appropriate. For instance, if a Jon Holland or Xavier Doherty is fit, Victoria or Tasmania should be told to play them in Shield fixtures. After all, first-class cricket exists solely to produce players for the Test team. And with due respect to Nathan Hauritz - an improving cricketer - we need pressure being applied on spin bowling positions all the way up the line to him.