Matt Maher: England gambling on Moeen Ali getting back ‘in the zone’
Weeks like this make you wonder whether it is ever meant to be for Moeen Ali and Warwickshire.
Finally back at his home county, nearly 17 years on from his move to Worcestershire, Moeen stepped off the plane an Indian Premier League winner and assumed the captaincy of a Bears team which had started the T20 Vitality Blast like a train and suddenly found someone had pulled the emergency cord.
After cruising to victory in their opening four matches, the Bears have now lost three straight under Ali’s leadership, including Wednesday’s rather embarrassing defeat to Derbyshire when they proved unable to defend a total of 203.
Wacky results are par for the course in T20 cricket, of course. The shame for Moeen, at least with a Warwickshire cap on, is he will not get the chance to firmly put the ship back on course. After tonight’s home fixture with Northants, he has significantly bigger fish to fry having accepted the offer of a recall to the England Test squad following an injury to Jack Leach.
In the build-up to an Ashes series not short on talking points, Moeen’s return more than 18 months after first retiring from the Test arena has become the primary topic of debate.
One thing which can be said, with certainty, is it underlines the paucity of top level spinners behind Leach in the English game. Rehan Ahmed and Will Jacks might have performed encouragingly in Pakistan last winter but are hardly running through teams in the County Championship. Ditto Liam Dawson.
That said, while the willingness to take risks has paid off handsomely for England in the first year of the Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes era, hoping a player whose last experience of red ball cricket came in September 2021 can discover some of the old magic is surely the biggest roll of the dice yet.
