Moeen: I am energised again after Ashes misery
Spinners key to England beating New Zealand Man of the match admits less pressure for wickets
It takes time to unwind after a day-night international, especially one so pivotal as the third of this five-match series. Everyone can forgive England for losing the Ashes, but if they were to lose the one-day series and the two-test series in New Zealand, that would constitute a bad winter.
Moeen Ali was man of the match in Wellington on Saturday after his second-best ODI bowling analysis.
His three wickets for 36, and Adil Rashid’s two wickets for 34, after New Zealand had raced to 80 for one in pursuit of 235, were highly instrumental in England going 2-1 up, not down.
But owing to his religious beliefs, Moeen did not join most of his team-mates in the bar of their harbourside hotel – the England players are still not allowed outside their team hotel after midnight, but they are allowed to celebrate there.
It took Moeen until 2am before he fell asleep, then up the next morning and a flight to South Island, for the first time on this tour of New Zealand, and to the university town of Dunedin – named after Edinburgh, but more akin in size and climate to Durham.
Moeen has not reacted well to the pressure of being England’s sole spinner on the last day of a Test when he is expected to bowl the opposition out: the Headingley Test against West Indies last August was the most recent occasion of several.
It is then that his inexperience is revealed: Moeen has bowled fewer than 4,000 overs in first-class cricket, or 20,584 balls to be exact.
Fred Titmus, the England offspinner of the post-war era, bowled more than eight times as many in his career. And the expectation on England’s spinners mounted on Saturday after Ish Sodhi had landed a leg-break on leg-stump which had then fizzed past the wicketkeeper’s right shoulder.
“We [he and Rashid] both knew we were the two guys who were going to win this game, but I didn’t feel pressure to take wickets or anything like that,” Moeen said.
“In one-day cricket, I feel I’ve bowled quite well in Australia, and I feel as though I can turn a game like that in terms of not just taking wickets, but trying to bowl tight and then the wickets will come.”
He himself admitted that he had not yet acquired the “guile” essential in Test cricket, whereas accuracy under fire and a bit of turn will go a long way in ODIS.
In addition, Eoin Morgan’s whiteball teams are less careworn than England’s Test side. It is a different chemistry “with the new players around and just the different type of characters, it’s a bit more of a younger side, we’re a lot more confident in the one-day white-ball stuff. You feel you get energised a bit after a difficult few months”.
England still do not have a permanent spin-bowling coach on tour, whereas the pace bowlers have Chris Silverwood to turn to. Saqlain Mushtaq, the spin consultant, who flew in for the first two Ashes Tests, was more of a Test specialist himself. “I haven’t really spoken to Saqqy for a while,” Moeen said. “We have spoken before in the past about white-ball. With Silvers, I actually don’t work too much with him. Me and Rash talk, about how we’re going to bowl a little bit different to the last game.
“I’d say we both watch the opposition bowl a little bit and decide how we’re going to try to bowl. First, we said we would try to bowl more with side-seam, to see if it grips, but as I bowled a few overs I thought, ‘bowl a bit slower on this wicket and try to get a bit more purchase’.”
That Moeen did, although he was helped by Mark Chapman playing a loose shot, Tom Latham missing a yorker and Colin de Grandhomme picking out Chris Woakes at longon (so precisely that Woakes did not have to move his feet one inch).
Even so, in spite of the naivety of New Zealand’s middle order, England had to excel to negate Kane Williamson’s resourceful century, and did so. “To win a tight game like this means you can take a lot going forward,” Moeen said.
“The most important thing for us was to win the game batting first on a tough wicket. I feel when we are chasing we can get anything – we believe that as a team – but batting first we can get better at setting a target. Defending these days is quite difficult.”
England do not yet have a pace attack to win the World Cup next summer, but their pair of spinners are close to the mark.