Ashton Agar's inclusion for the Nottingham Test match is the best selection pick since Max Walker came into Ian Chappell's team against Pakistan at the MCG in 1972. And Big Max proved a trump card in the Caribbean just a few months later.

Agar has played just 10 first-class matches, but in all of them at home and abroad the youngster has impressed with his good rhythm and calm temperament. Agar is a very confident young man without a hint of brashness. The left-arm spinner delivers from a considerable height and gets a lot of over spin on the ball, something which all spinners appreciate in desire to achieve an acutely dipping arc.

There is a look of Daniel Vettori about Agar. Over the years I have worked with Vettori and showed him the square spinner: a ball which looks as though it is spinning but skids on straight. Vettori picked it up straight away, so too Graeme Swann. And both bowlers have collected big scalps with the square spinner. It reacts similarly to the one pushed out the front of the hand by a leg-spinner. In April I spent a week at the Centre of Excellence in Brisbane where I could see at close hand the bowling of Ashton Agar, Nathan Lyon and Fawad Ahmed. While Lyon bowled inconsistently, much as he did in India with three good balls to every 10 and Fawad impressed with his control and repertoire, it was Agar who stood head and shoulders above the trio in terms of a smooth and natural method of bowling.

Unlike Max Walker, whose approach to the crease was a tangle-footed display of arms and legs going in all directions, Agar moves in rhythmically and his whole approach and energy through the crease appears to be the most natural thing in the world for him. I told him about the square spinner and to my delight he already had it in his bag of tricks. That Ashton has a Sri Lankan heritage may have something to do with his smooth and natural way of spinning a ball. In Sri Lanka the spinners bowl naturally. They are not over-coached. They, like Rangana Herath, become wicket predators: hunters.