Moeen’s defection is warning sign for the future
Discarded Test spinner has taken up a £150,000 offer to play T20 in Pakistan,
Most like Moeen. He has never come across as a grasping or selfish player
Never ignore the small print, old newsroom hands like to say. Some of the most intriguing nuggets can be found in the unexpected “in-briefs”. The security guard caught speeding in a Ferrari, perhaps, or the bank that was robbed on a Sunday. Things that just do not look right.
For a sporting example, take Wednesday’s squad announcement for the forthcoming Test tour of Sri Lanka. The headlines focused on Keaton Jennings’s recall at the top of the order – and fair enough, because few openers are granted a third crack at Test cricket. But, wait … whatever happened to Moeen Ali? This is the man, remember, who finished joint first in England’s Test wickets table in November 2018 – the month when their last visit to Sri Lanka delivered a 3-0 win.
Admittedly, Moeen might have endured a dismal summer in 2019. He was dropped halfway through the World Cup, then played only the first Test of the Ashes. But given the paucity of other spin options – with the greatest of respect to Jack Leach, Dom Bess and novice leggie Matt Parkinson – he must have been due a recall. There is little doubt that Joe
Root – who also invited him to join the recent South African Test tour – would have been delighted to have him.
So what is going on? As one report put it, in a single discreet sentence near the bottom of the page, “Ali, according to the selectors, is ‘highly valued’ but remains unavailable and will play in the Pakistan Super League instead.”
Ah, now we come to it. The Multan Sultans – a Twenty20 franchise run by former England coach Andy Flower – have offered him £150,000 for four weeks’ work, starting in Lahore on Thursday. This comfortably exceeds the Test fees (around £15,000 per match) that Moeen could have picked up in Sri Lanka.
Is there not an echo here of the Kevin Pietersen saga, dating back 10 years and more? Pietersen was constantly at the centre of a “cashversus-country row” over his involvement in the Indian Premier League. And yet, he never missed an England Test to play Twenty20 cricket. Pietersen was well aware that, had he done so, we pundits would have buried him under a gigantic pile of ordure.
As he wrote in his autobiography: “Every English newspaper article about the IPL reads like a health warning to lovers of ‘real’ cricket.”
So why is Moeen not attracting more rotten tomatoes? Is he not the first Englishman to refuse Test call-ups in favour of Twenty20’s cash bonanza?
And does this not make him a “grubby bat-for-hire mercenary” – to borrow another sarcastic phrase from Pietersen’s book?
Well, that depends on your perspective. Some argue that England should be looking to the future anyway. Moeen has not risen to the challenge of Ashes cricket in the past, and is unlikely to rip through the Baggy Green batting on the 2021-22 tour.
But there are other reasons why nobody has made much of his absences from South Africa and – more significantly, given the likely nature of the pitches – Sri Lanka.
First, most people like Moeen. He has never come across as a grasping or selfish player; indeed, he has probably been too ready to put himself out for the needs of the team. Over a 60-Test career, he has batted in more spots than Jeff Bezos has houses.
Then there is the other point: loyalty is a two-way street. “A lot of the time if we lose I feel I am one of the first guys to get the blame for it,” said Moeen, who did not receive one of the 10 Test-match contracts handed out by the England management in September. “I needed to step back from Test cricket. I felt like I was drained from it all.”
We are talking about a minor squabble, really, between a talented/ frustrating cricketer (delete as applicable) and his hard-nosed/hamfisted employers. As such, Moeen’s case is more than just a staging post on the road to a dystopian, Twenty20based future. Yet his defection still fits into a wider, more concerning narrative. He could even be seen as the canary in the coal mine.
For the moment, the England and Wales Cricket Board has deeper pockets than South Africa or West Indies, and is thus better placed to retain players. But the administrators are desperate to avoid battles with franchise cricket – and above all the IPL. That is why the coming summer features no internationals in May for the first time since 2000.
Like Moeen’s absence from Sri Lanka, it is a sign of things to come.