to catch up with them: the last thankless task of a long, thankless day.
For Moeen, the day had begun with high hopes and high ideals. Entrusted with the first over of the day in
his hometown, on a spinning wicket, he knew his contribution would be pivotal. And it was, although not
quite in the way he had hoped. In his first over, he startled Steve Smith with a head-high beamer after the
ball slipped out of his hand. It didn’t get too much better after that. It was well past 5pm by the time he
delivered his first maiden of the day.
What’s eating Moeen? It’s a question that we have often been forced to ask over the last few years, as this
most mercurial of players blows mercilessly from one weather to another. His batting has deteriorated to
the point where to call him an all-rounder feels a touching exercise in nostalgia. Often it’s said of out-of-
form batsmen that they have forgotten where their off-stump is. Moeen appears to have forgotten where all
three stumps are, as well as the fielders, the bowler, the ball, his own bat and most of his limbs. Cruelly, on
current form, Jack Leach feels a better option with both bat and ball at the moment.
Moeen’s advocates argue that nobody has taken more Test wickets in the world over the last 12 months. It’s
a persuasive statistic, albeit one that tells us two things above all: firstly, that England have played more
Tests than anyone else in that period; and secondly, that Moeen’s form came on the back of an extended
break from international cricket in the first half of 2018, after being dropped from the side.
By contrast, if you take into account the Test and one-day tours of the Caribbean, the Indian Premier
League, the World Cup build-up and the World Cup, Moeen has been playing pretty much solidly since the
middle of January. This is his 36th game of cricket this year, not including practice, travel, training camps
and all the other annoying little bits and pieces that make up the life of an international cricketer. Coach
Trevor Bayliss used to say there’s nothing like a good dropping to bring the best out of a player. Moeen has
scarcely looked more in need of a few weeks off and maybe a nice spa day with the family.
And it was a similar story everywhere you looked. For Ben Stokes, the day had begun with a crackle of
electricity, a chance to be the difference-maker. The previous evening, he had dismissed Usman Khawaja
with his second ball to swing the momentum back England’s way. Now, as he hobbled stiffly around in
between spells of innocuous 82mph pace, the heroics of three weeks ago felt like a flicker of some distant
memory.
How do you pick yourself up after the greatest emotional rush of your life? When you’ve given every last
bead of juice you have in service to a cause, what happens when you go back to the well? As with many of
his team-mates, the adrenaline of the encounter had sustained Stokes’s tired limbs through the first three
days. Now, as Australia’s middle order piled on the pain, Stokes was going back to the well, and finding
there was nothing left to call on.
What's eating Moeen Ali? (Getty)