Opponents and commentators continue to underestimate Moeen Ali, yet he continues to score runs and take wickets. Perhaps it’s time he was shown the respect he deserves
George Dobell in Cardiff09-Jul-2015″There is,” said Lao Tzu, the Chinese philosopher, “no greater danger than underestimating your opponent.”But opponents keep underestimating Moeen Ali. And just as India learned in 2014, Australia will be reflecting now that it pays to treat him a little more respectfully.Moeen ended the second day of the first Investec Test with the wickets of two of the best players of spin in world cricket – the No. 1 rated batsman, Steve Smith, and the Australia captain, Michael Clarke – and a fluent half-century that helped England to a respectable first-innings score and inflict upon Mitchell Johnson the worst figures of his Test career. For a man who was the scourge of England in the last Ashes, that represents significant rehabilitation. Indeed, it may prove to be that Johnson’s scars that are more relevant than England’s.Moeen’s innings – pleasing though it was – should have come as little surprise. He earned his reputation as a talented strokemaker with time and class to spare. In 2007, aged just 20, he thrashed what was, at the time, the second highest List A century in games between first-class counties – it took 46 balls – and little more than a year ago, compiled a high-class century in just his second Test. We knew he could bat.Perhaps, putting him at No. 8, might have been interpreted as a lack of belief. But Moeen has chosen to interpret the move positively and feels that batting with the tail has given him licence to play his shots freely. Here he helped England add 137 for last four wickets, providing a reminder of the value of such depth in the order. England started the last Ashes series with Stuart Broad at No. 8 and never had the quality to rebuild after a poor start.
Trevor Bayliss has encouraged Moeen to vary his speed more often in an attempt to prevent batsmen from settling. It might be Bayliss’ first direct contribution to England’s cause
There will be surfaces where Moeen is tested far more by the short ball – this is a particularly sluggish pitch. But in among the pulls and sweeps were some gorgeously timed drives to the boundary that bore the hallmark of true class. There have been few better regular No. 8s in history and with him there, opponents’ bowling attacks will feel that they face a daunting task to kill off the England batting.But it seems to be with the ball that Moeen has to prove himself time and time again. Ahead of this series, a number of former England captains suggested he should make way for the legspin of Adil Rashid. He was, once again, dismissed as a “part time” bowler.Perhaps they had forgotten Moeen’s success against India last year or perhaps they had witnessed his rusty showing in Barbados – where he bowled particularly poorly – and concluded that the India series was an aberration.But either interpretation is harsh. Moeen claimed 19 wickets in that series against India – the fourth highest haul any spinner had claimed against India in a Test series outside the subcontinent and the best since 1967 when Ray Illingworth bowled 30 more overs and claimed one more victim – and dismissed some high-quality players.Indeed, he can now add Smith and Clarke to a haul that includes Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane and Kumar Sangakkara twice each. Repeated success cannot keep being dismissed as a one-off.While India, like Australia, lost their first few wickets against him as they attempted to thrash him out of the game – his first two of the eight career-changing wickets he claimed in Southampton came when Rohit Sharma and Rahane slogged innocuous deliveries to mid-off and mid-on respectively – such errors tend to boost the confidence of the bowler. In the second innings, he struck through his drift and arm ball.Moeen has not been at his best in his last few Tests. Recalled to the side in the Caribbean after recovering from injury, he was clearly rusty and, after a couple of modest performances, lost a bit of confidence. He has not had the overs he might have liked with Worcestershire, either, to rebuild such rhythm. They have Saeed Ajmal in the side and have played a fair bit of white-ball cricket in recent weeks.The “part time” tag is simply incorrect, though. Since the start of the 2012 season, Moeen has bowled more first-class overs than either Adil Rashid or a county stalwart such as Gareth Batty. In that time, he has also taken more wickets at a lower average than Rashid.But it is fair to think of him as a bowler in development. He did not start bowling regularly until the 2010 season – his sixth year as a first-class player – and, until 2012, had only taken one five-wicket haul. He is not the finished article and he admits he is not, as yet, bowling to the standard he reached against India. As he put it: “there will be lots of bad days ahead.”While he has similar weapons to Graeme Swann – the drift, flight, dip, turn and arm ball – he does not have Swann’s consistency. He does not have the ability to build pressure or maintain control. Only one of his 14 overs was a maiden and England were instead reliant upon James Anderson, who bowled four maidens in succession at one stage, and the impressively mature Ben Stokes, to bowl dry.Moeen Ali takes his second crucial wicket, Michael Clarke caught and bowled•Getty ImagesFor that reason, Australia’s tactics were probably wrong. There is, at this stage in Moeen’s career, no need to go after his bowling. He will bowl enough release deliveries – most pertinently the dragged down short ball – to allow batsmen to progress and give his captain some tricky challenges. Looking to hit him out of the attack just “brings me into the game more,” he said.And so it proved when Smith, intent on charging down the wicket, was wrong footed by Moeen’s decision to fire the ball down the leg side – perhaps in search of the stumping – and found himself in a horrible tangle and spooning a catch to short mid-on.If such a wicket was somewhat fortuitous – and you may equally well call it cunning – the wicket of Clarke was due to some old-fashioned guile. Holding the ball back just a little – it was four miles-an-hour slower than the delivery that dismissed Smith – he deceived Clarke just enough in the flight that the batsman was unable to reach the pitch of the ball with his drive and presented a sharp return catch.Moeen credited Trevor Bayliss for that wicket. While his bowling against India was notable for its pace – once he learned he could bowl faster at Lord’s he hardly bowled any other way – Bayliss has encouraged him to vary his speed more often in an attempt to prevent batsmen from settling. It might be Bayliss’ first direct contribution to England’s cause.Moeen’s problem may be simply that he is not a legspinner. Some commentators seem to have been seduced by the idea of fielding a legspinner in the belief that such a move is inherently aggressive. But anyone expecting Rashid to rip out top Test players or bowl tight overs all day has simply never watched him. He has many qualities but consistency is not one of them.If England go back to dropping players after a couple of poor games, they will go back to the grim years of the 1980s and 90s. Moeen might not have warranted selection as a specialist spinner in a richer playing age but, right now, he really may be as good as England have and his record – 35 wickets at 32.65 – deserves rather more respect than it is sometimes given.
