England find their MOJO
Moeen Ali admitted it was ‘great to be back’ after he took five wickets on the second day of his Test return against india to leave the series on a knife-edge.
england, who lead 2-1 after three Tests, reached stumps on six without loss in their second innings, trailing india by 21 runs, after Ali’s five for 63 ran through the tourists’ middle order.
only Cheteshwar Pujara, with a superb unbeaten 132, offered much
JOE rOOt had an excellent day as captain. the way he shuffled his pack, defended a relatively small total and used Moeen Ali was exceptional.
Whenever you look at india in the field it is always clear Virat Kohli is in charge but with England it can sometimes be a bit more of a team effort.
i don’t have a problem with that because you want 11 leaders out there but when i looked out on the Ageas Bowl yesterday, i knew exactly who was captain and i would like to see root showing more of that authority in the field.
Nothing summed up root’s captaincy more than an incident early in the middle session when stuart Broad, as he often does, was speaking to Jimmy Anderson about where he wanted his third man.
But root, positioned at second slip, was quite clear where he wanted the fielder to be. Broad moved the third man without consulting root but the captain said, ‘No, calm down, i want him there.’
When Broad tried to do it again root made it pretty clear who was in charge and got his way. if anything root could have been a bit stronger but i liked the fact he showed his senior men that the buck stopped with him.
this is a huge match and if England lose the series it is the captain who will be left facing questions.
i know you have to give your bowlers leeway, particularly two like Anderson and Broad who have close to a thousand test wickets between them. Both of them have exceptional cricket brains, too.
Generally, previous captains have let them have their own way because you don’t want an upset Broad and Anderson. You want them to feel like they are doing it themselves. root has pretty much led the same way up until now, too.
that’s why root likes to position himself at mid- off, trying to cajole and man-manage his bowlers, just as i liked to field there when i was captain so i could talk to the likes of Darren Gough and Andrew Caddick.
Now that root has gone to slip it is a harder thing to do but he showed yesterday that he will stand up to great players and there will be times when he is right to insist: ‘i’m in charge of this cricket team and we’re doing it my way.’
it doesn’t matter if you fall out with people. i played in an Essex team who were constantly falling out with each other. And i had run-ins with some England players too in the heat of battle but they were quickly forgotten.
this was a good bowling display from England, particularly Moeen Ali. Moeen is such an anomaly. he likes to be under the radar, picked as a second spinner after Adil rashid and treated as a bit of a bonus. that’s when he’s at his best.
When the onus is on him as the only spinner, as it was during the Ashes in Australia last winter, he can feel the heat, but he is an exceptional cricketer, albeit one who sums up England’s dilemma. he is brilliant at home but not so great away.
the bottom line is that, in England, i would always have Moeen in the side as the spinner along with four seamers. We will worry about the sri Lanka and West indies tours later.
it’s remarkable how quickly this southampton pitch has become spin-friendly and it could be a cracking game now but it is a myth that all indian players are good players of spin.
if the England batsmen can just give them something to play with, Moeen and rashid could easily bowl india out in the last innings to clinch the series.