Moeen Ali intends to “go with the flow” in the upcoming Ashes series and given the week just gone, the enormity of the challenge to come, and the team he has rejoined, it seems a fittingly decent outlook.
A week last Sunday, eyeing up a summer in the Blast, the Hundred and a family holiday in the Cotswolds, Moeen received a text from Ben Stokes that simply read: “Ashes?” Unaware that Jack Leach was out of the series with a lower-back stress fracture, this was met with a typical Moeen reply of “LOL”.
Moeen thought Stokes was “taking the mick” but over the next two days, after talks with the Test captain and Rob Key at the PCA golf day, caution from his wife, Firuza, and even the prime minister calling for his return, he said “yes”. Two years out of first-class cricket? Not a problem. Moeen has been lured by England’s new approach and an Ashes series that is shaping up to be a cracker.
His first day back at training was pretty eventful. Rocking up in all black civvies and exchanging pleasantries with the stewards, Moeen was soon into those unfamiliar whites for some official headshots. Five minutes later he and everybody – players, coaches, staff and media – were turfed out on the busy Edgbaston Road due to a fire alarm, the shoppers outside Aldi blinking double-takes in bright sunshine.
And on Wednesday he will head to Windsor with Firuza, his father, Munir, and his mother, Maqsood, to be presented with an OBE. Two days out from an Ashes series, this swerve from preparations was endorsed by England’s dream-weaving head coach, Brendon McCullum. “Mum and Dad love it,” Moeen says, his acceptance of the award as much for family as himself. “I’ve bought a three-piece suit. It’s going to be boiling.”
This dash to collect an honour for “services to cricket” is a useful reminder of a career that was forged in nearby Sparkhill, comes full circle this week and could have been deemed fulfilled. Given the Test highs, two World Cup wins and a couple of Indian Premier League titles, a soon-to-be 36-year-old paid handsomely for white-ball cricket could have shouldered arms.
“Somebody told me about the prime minister but that didn’t convince me as much,” says Moeen, smiling about Rishi Sunak’s intervention last week. “I’d really made my mind up before that. It’s just the fact that it’s the Ashes and the exciting cricket the guys have been playing. It’s a kind of era I’d have loved when I was playing.”
Asked if he would have answered the call had another captain made it, Moeen replied: “Probably not, no. [Stokes’s] mindset is very different to other captains I’ve had previously. I’m not saying they are bad captains. It’s just the way the game is going and the way they have been playing, he is the kind of guy you want to play for.”
This appears a likely one-off, the tour of India next year not on Moeen’s radar. But the seeds of the comeback were sown in that country, Moeen taken by the way Stokes was talking about his England project while they were teammates at Chennai Super Kings.
If full freedom to go hard with the bat was music to the ears of a freewheeler who is likely to slot in at No 8, the role with the ball is the big question. Moeen knows that Australia’s lineup, even packed with the left-handers that got him the nod, will look to take him down.
“If I was them I’d do the same,” admits Moeen. “It could be dangerous because Stokesy likes having the fielders up. It could go for a lot of runs. I’ve never been able to hold an end up. Ben and Baz [McCullum] know what they are going to get from me – there won’t be a lot of maidens.”
What they will get are more wicket-taking deliveries than Leach, perhaps, as well as fourth-innings threat. When England defend targets, only Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad boast more than Moeen’s 59 wickets at 22. This was back then, of course, with the hiatus offering no guarantees, but apparently no stress either.
“It is a free hit,” says Moeen. “I’m not playing for my spot. There’s no pressure, really. There is pressure of the occasion and the game, but I spoke to Baz and he said he’s not bothered about how I perform, which is quite nice.
“Watching the team, I was like, ‘Yeah I wish this was the case much before’, and I think I’d probably have done much better.” After answering an SOS with an LOL and picking up an OBE, Moeen will soon have his answer.
