Spinner turns corner after winter of misery

After a gruelling Ashes, Moeen has benefited by returning to the county game, reports Nick Hoult

At one stage during his five-wicket roll, Moeen Ali stopped to sign an inflatable shark before tossing it back to the crowd. Having spent the winter being circled by Australian great whites and then eaten alive from Brisbane to Sydney, it was a refreshing sign that Moeen was back and happy to be here.

Moeen took five for 41 in 10 overs either side of tea, in one swoop matching his wicket haul for the entire Australia series where he joined a long list of English off-spinners bullied into submission.

His five Ashes wickets averaged 114 runs each and he later admitted it was a relief to be dropped on the follow-up tour to New Zealand. Honest to a fault, he also conceded it should probably have happened three matches earlier, but Joe Root stuck with him and continually tried to boost his long-lost confidence by telling him he is a match-winner.

In truth, that only really happens at home these days, like so many of England’s players, and the biggest test of this second half of Moeen’s career will come in Sri Lanka in two months’ time when he will be expected to win matches on turning pitches against good players of spin.

This performance should restore some belief. He ably exploited rough created by Ishant Sharma bowling round the wicket to England’s left-handers on day one, and to a lesser extent Sam Curran yesterday, and combined it with flight and good changes of pace to produce the best spin-bowling performance of the series. In doing so, he became the first English spinner to take five wickets in the first innings of a Test at home since 2013, when Ashes pitches were dried out under Andy Flower’s orders for Graeme Swann rather than by any English heatwave.

Sloppy batting helped, none more than that of Ravichandran Ashwin, who was bowled via an under-edge reverse-sweeping, but from 161 for four when Rishabh Pant came in, India slumped to 195 for eight by the time Moeen took his fifth wicket, when Sharma was caught at short leg.

A corner turned, and Australia forgotten in what Moeen described as a “fresh start”.

“It is about believing you are not a bad player after one bad winter,” he said. “Many players have gone through that. For me, it was about moving on and hoping it made me a better player, a stronger character. It was about going out there performing for my country

‘Many players have gone through what I have. It is about moving on and being strong’

knowing I can do well here in England because I have done it before. Yes, it was a bad winter but I shrugged it off.”

England have wrestled for four years with how to maximise Moeen, who embodies the simplicity and complexity of cricket almost better than anyone in the game. Simple, because he is brilliant when in form and feeling chipper like he is at the moment after a double hundred for Worcestershire last week and six wickets in bowling out Yorkshire.

Complex because he has gone through many guises: batsman who bowls, spinner who bats, opener, No1 spinner and second spinner. England have also had to use various forms of kidology to make him believe he can do it. It culminated in picking Liam Dawson this time last year and describing him as the best spinner in England so Moeen would not freeze under the pressure of being No1.

It is at home, and particularly playing against India, when Moeen feels part of the fabric of this team and thus performs his best. Why? Perhaps the answer will be revealed in his forthcoming autobiography due to be published this month and England will be eagerly scanning it for answers.

It was at the Ageas Bowl four years ago that Moeen took six for 67 against India in a crucial Test win that saved Alastair Cook’s captaincy when it was being drowned by the nuclear fallout from the Kevin Pietersen sacking.

A hat-trick against South Africa last year at the Oval was the first by an English spinner since 1938 and at home he averages 32 in an era when pitches and England’s entire strategy has been built for seam and swing.

But away he averages 54 and has been marmalised in both India and Australia. Moeen refused to put it down to something as simple as confidence. “I don’t use that word,” he said. But we can use it for him because the evidence speaks for itself. Bowling long spells in county cricket for Worcestershire last week have made all the difference.

It is a shame schedules do not allow others to do the same because he is not the only England player who needs a “fresh start”.