Six-hitter Moeen’s thrilling knock puts England in driving seat
Left-hander’s 67 puts hosts on brink of victory Opener Jennings fails to stamp his authority again
As a job description it could hardly be simpler. “Wanted: one reliable opening batsman to see off the new ball in Australia this winter. Experience preferred but not essential.”
Overall, it was an excellent third day for England once Moeen Ali had taken down his opposite number, South Africa’s spinner, with three sixes in an unbeaten 67.
The Basil d’oliveira Trophy is in the bag because the tourists are not going to score 360-plus on a sporting pitch. It was not an entirely satisfactory day, however, for England because the right applicant has yet to answer their wanted ad – not in this match, not this year, not since Andrew Strauss retired as Alastair Cook’s opening partner in 2012.
Batting through the first 24 overs of the new ball will enable England’s numerous stroke-players to run amok in Australia this winter, but Keaton Jennings did not do it here with much conviction. His head was not in it, or rather it was not behind the line of the ball angled across him, so that he kept feeling outside off stump, and he was dropped at third slip by Dean Elgar, one of five missed catches by South Africa, though three would have been stunners had they been taken. When Jennings rested his case – trying to accelerate after lunch by cutting a ball too close to him – he had made 127 runs in his eight innings in the series.
The wider context, though, is that it has been a fiendishly difficult series for opening batsmen against some world-class new-ball bowling; and totals around the country were low yesterday, not least at the Ageas Bowl where Haseeb Hameed chased a wide ball – the sort he was leaving last season – and was caught for six. Heino Kuhn has to score 25 runs in South Africa’s second innings, otherwise Jennings will have beaten his opposite number.
It was certainly not the weather for a beauty contest by the time rain lopped off the last 17.4 overs, but that is what England’s second innings effectively was for Jennings, Tom Westley and Dawid Malan. None could strut his stuff, however, or even make ugly runs.
Westley is being rapidly worked out – or else the luck he used up when playing and missing at the Oval has run out. He has considerable strengths, starting with a more active and assertive demeanour than Jennings, but he is not going to be displaying them much to Australia if he plays across the line of the new ball as he did again.
In short, nothing happened in England’s second innings to alter the belief that Jennings should drop down to No3 and Westley should have a stab at No5, ahead of Gary Ballance.
Both Jennings and Westley have shown enough to be given further opportunities – down the order from where they are now.
Malan undoubtedly has an England future – in white-ball formats. As a left-hander facing Keshav Maharaj pitching the ball in and out of copious rough, Malan should not be judged on his dismissal so much as on how late he was when Kagiso Rabada bounced him and he scooped a chance behind point – that, and his aggregate of 35 runs in four Test innings.
Malan might succeed if given a lengthy run, but a middle-order batsman who averages 37 in county cricket, when batting half the time on the flat pitches of Lord’s, is less deserving of such a run than an opener who has averaged 34 in difficult conditions at Durham.
If West Indies retain anything of their former excellence, it is in their new-ball attack, so if Mark Stoneman can make runs in the forthcoming three-test series, he would stand a chance of seeing off the new ball in Australia.
With Maharaj holding one end, South Africa’s three right-arm pace bowlers could rotate from the James Anderson end. It made for a lovely balanced attack – a slow leftarmer and three seamers – which England briefly enjoyed a decade ago with Monty Panesar. Moeen then climbed into Maharaj with sweep, reverse-sweep and slogsweep to counter-attack as Jonny Bairstow had done in his 99 in the first innings. When Moeen straight drove into the new pavilion, Bairstow appropriately took the catch, just as Moeen had taken heed of his example.
Moeen has batted everywhere for England, from one to nine. The position where he has batted least – one innings – happens to be No3, his regular position for Worcestershire. If the worst comes to the worst this winter and nobody applies for any of the batting vacancies, Moeen could bat there, and the spectacle would never be dull.
Indeed, his hitting inspired the Old Trafford crowd, which has always been the most vocal at England’s Test grounds.
More immediately, Moeen will have four left-handers to bowl at in South Africa’s second innings, and with the ball sometimes shooting, sometimes spitting out of the rough, he will make it talk, if not sing.