When Mushtaq Ahmed, of the whirling arms, whiskers and ready smile, retired this year after a career that brought him 1,407 first-class wickets and a glorious Indian summer with Sussex, he said a curious thing. Mushtaq said that he envisaged that his future in the game, helping youngsters and passing on his considerable knowledge, would be in England, rather than his native Pakistan, because this is where the future of spin bowling is brightest.

Derek Underwood, the most successful England spinner in history, who accepted the MCC president's baton this week from Mike Brearley, was less optimistic about English spin bowling in these pages yesterday. His focus was a narrow one - that of his home county, Kent, who, he said, have only one off spinner and no left-armer. But if he had spread his net wider, he would have seen a similar picture throughout the county game. You have to look damn hard to find the potential that so excited Mushtaq.

A week spent watching the denouement of the LV County Championship at Trent Bridge last week highlighted the issue. There were four spinners on view, bowling on a pitch that, while slow, was bare and dry. There were two left-armers (Samit Patel and Liam Dawson), an off spinner (Graeme Swann) and a leg spinner (Imran Tahir): three home-produced players and one from overseas; three orthodox spinners and one with more “mystery”. Between them, the home-grown spinners took four wickets and Tahir took eight.

Such was the expectation of Tahir's success, and so important was he considered to Hampshire's chances, that the county perpetrated an elaborate wheeze during the build-up to the match as to his whereabouts before unleashing him on an unsuspecting Nottinghamshire team. With his combination of leggies, googlies and flippers, it was easy to see why. No such deception was required by Nottinghamshire, and not much employed by their spinners, either, as they plugged away in typically English fashion.

Patel is a high-class batsman, but it is remarkable to think that he was touted for the second spinner's role on the tour to India after a season in which he took only a dozen championship wickets. And once the selectors decided that Adil Rashid was not ready, Swann was a shoo-in. So bare is the spinning cupboard that the England selectors were forced to scratch around like backyard chooks even to come up with contenders to challenge Swann. There are not many.

Only nine English spinners took more than 30 wickets this year. Mostly, the names are well-known, practitioners of the art who have been around the block more than once. Ian Salisbury, Robert Croft, Gareth Batty and Shaun Udal, for example, are good performers but hardly potential putty in Mushtaq's hands. There are only a couple of younger bowlers, Monty Panesar apart, who achieved that milestone: Rashid and Ollie Rayner, of Sussex, both of whom were rewarded with a place in the England development squad.

Thirty years ago 19 English spinners achieved that milestone of 30 wickets, Underwood, with 110, taking the most. And while only three English spinners this year averaged less than 30, in 1978 there were 14 who did so.

The trend of decline is undeniable. In 1988 there were 14 English spinners who took 30 wickets or more and nine who averaged less than 30; in 1998 there were nine who took more than 30 wickets, four of whom averaged under 30. Between 1978 and 1998 something went seriously wrong with English spin, and it has not recovered.

The principal reason must be the pitches, which were uncovered in 1978, allowing players such as Underwood to wreak havoc whenever rain fell. Three years later they were covered (uncovered pitches made a brief return in 1987, but the run-ups remained covered, encouraging captains to bowl not spin but seam on wet pitches.) Natural English soil pitches were then gradually replaced by those made from Surrey and Ongar loams, so that they no longer crumbled but cracked, making quicker bowlers just as potent on the last day of a match as spinners.

The move to four-day cricket was supposed to herald more spinners bowling in tandem on wearing pitches, but the “twirlies” have become less, not more, influential in the modern county game. In 1978 18 English spinners bowled more than 500 overs in the season (they played more matches then); in 1988 14 bowled that amount, while in 1998 two did and in 2008 only three spinners bowled that number of overs.

English spin, then, has a marginal influence on the county game. Croft could be described as a senior spokesman, a tub-thumping union leader for home-grown spinners in the English game, and he points to factors, other than the covering of pitches, that have encouraged this marginalisation.

While the two-division County Championship has increased competitiveness, he says that it mitigates against young spinners, who need time to mature. In a more cut-throat environment, in which taking a long-term view can mean Siberia status in the second division, counties want returns immediately.

Croft reckons that batsmen play spin far better now than when he started, that they see the introduction of spin as an opportunity, not a threat, and that sweeping and reverse-sweeping are commonplace in a way that they were not 20 years ago. England did not tour the sub-continent between 1993 and 2000, but they did so frequently after that and Croft believes that the influence of England's batsmen who toured there around the turn of the millennium trickled down into county cricket.

The size of bats must be a factor, too. John Woodcock, of this parish, tells a story of the 1956 Australians, who arrived in England and were given two bats apiece by Gunn & Moore, as was the custom.

Every bat weighed less than 2lb 4oz, except for those owned by big-hitting Ken “Slasher” Mackay, who wanted them to weigh 2lb 6oz. It is not only for the thought of touring teams being given a couple of freebies without cheques attached that such a story seems so outlandish. Few now use anything as light as Mackay's bat and if they did, they would be of an utterly different shape. As in golf and tennis, technology has changed the game, but unlike golf and tennis it has been an unequal shift because bowlers have not benefited to the same extent.

Croft also points to the absence of spin-bowling coaches. Only one England bowling coach, John Emburey, has been a spinner and of the 18 county coaches only Ashley Giles and Mike Watkinson (Paul Grayson, of Essex, bowled some left-arm spin, too, but was mainly a batsman) are in a position to pass on knowledge.

“It's a bit like wicketkeeping,” Croft said. “You really need specialist knowledge and personal experience to coach spin.” Tellingly, England have been looking for a national spin-bowling coach for a while but have not filled the position.

In this desolate landscape for English spin, there are two causes for optimism. One is the presence of Panesar and Rashid, the other is that Australia's cupboard is equally bare. Bryce McGain, their 36-year-old leg spinner (57 first-class wickets), has been ruled out of next week's first Test match against India with a shoulder injury, leaving spin-bowling duties in the care of Jason Krejza (43 first-class wickets at 45.46). India's batsmen will sleep soundly this week.