IT WOULD be refreshing in these days of 12-month seasons if I could tell you that, after his Ashes exertions, Merlyn is just emerging back after a four-month break in South America, having learnt Spanish, the guitar and how to fall sleep anywhere, anytime. But I stole his ticket and went instead.

In the barn of his birth, overlooked by the Black Mountains, Merlyn has been forging on. He has a remorseless appetite for absorbing identities. Last summer Shane Warne, next month, before England leave for India, it will be Harbhajan Singh — aka The Turbanator — and Anil Kumble. He is constantly working on new balls and tells me he is particularly looking forward to the arrival of Muttiah Muralitharan in May.

One thing I was not expecting Merlyn to do was get me in and out of fights. London’s Shaftesbury Avenue Walkabout, Antipodean Central, is not an unlikely venue for a punch-up after a Christmas party. My “friend” decided that it was an opportune moment to rub Ashes into 30 pairs of Aussie eyes. “See my friend?” he spounted in a drunken drawl. “He only invented the Merlyn machine. Beat you lot of losers.”

It was a warm night and the bar was packed, but the temperature dropped about ten degrees in two minutes, much in the way it does if you told a bunch of Kiwis that they would have a good rugby team if they did not always choke at the World Cup. Luckily, we were saved by some thick-set Chelsea football fans, who said that they had heard of Merlyn.

There have been inquiries form all over, but strangely none as yet from Australia. They seem to be back to winning ways, but if they fancy some help against reverse swing, I would be more than willing to ask Merlyn if he is available.

The most inspiring aspect to come out of the magical summer of 2005 and this winter, for my and Merlyn’s father, Henry, was the enthusiasm for cricket that still exists in Britain. It restored his faith, I think, after 15 years of designing.

There were a couple of cynical voices over the summer, but one thing said by Troy Cooley, the England bowling coach, in the winter and echoed by others has remained with me. “Shane Warne took 40 wickets during the Ashes — but he might have taken 60 without Merlyn,” Cooley said. Next winter and Warne seems almost upon us again already.

If some Australians and the odd pro were carping after the first Test at Lord’s, most cricket fans have been nothing but supportive and keen to have a go. Now everything has changed and it is not about proving concepts, but satisfying demand. Aside from trying to help England again this coming summer against the wiles of Muralitharan and Danesh Kaneria and the swing of Shoaib, my father’s dream is to have everybody using Merlyn.

That is why he built Merlyn — to inspire and teach people how to play and he has been talking to sponsors about taking Merlyn (and a few brothers) out of the professional game and into the streets. He would love to see it in schools like Ffynnon Gynydd, where he coaches. It has been a thrill seeing Merlyn at Test grounds, but it would be a greater one to see him being used in schools and clubs across the land.

The speed of Shoaib Akhtar means it would be too dangerous for most to test against. But Warne and Muralitharan deal more in psychological than physical pain and so even the novice does not risk physical discomfort when facing Merlyn, although even the good club cricketer would be shocked at how fast both spinners bowl.

Farther afield, my father has his heart set on teaching cricket to the French and, for reasons I have yet to discover, the Poles.

• For more information on Merlyn, visit the website www.merlynbowling.com