Matt Maher: England gambling on Moeen Ali getting back ‘in the zone’

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.

This week wasn’t their first attempt at tempting Moeen back. McCullum also made overtures last summer and for a brief period they appeared successful. Moeen “unretired” for a couple of months before then making himself unavailable for the winter tour of Pakistan, before a recall could arrive.

“Test cricket is hard work,” he wrote in his newspaper column at the time. “I’m 35 and something’s got to give.

“It wouldn’t be fair to reverse my decision and then struggle to give it my all.”

The question, then, is what has changed? What has convinced a player who upon first retiring from Test cricket admitted he was struggling to get “in the zone” think he can do so now against an Australian team who, in the next few days, may well be crowned best in the world?

Timing and circumstances are important. Both of Moeen’s retirements from the sport’s longest format came prior to winter tours, where he would have been spending months away from his family.

That is obviously not the case this summer. Next week’s first Test takes place at Edgbaston, barely a couple of miles from his home. Those Covid bubbles which proved so draining to Moeen and other players are, thankfully, a thing of the past.

And just maybe he wasn’t so content in retirement from Test cricket as he claimed. While Moeen’s place in the pantheon of Midlands cricketing greats, along with his status as a trailblazer for British Muslims, has long been assured, there will always be questions over whether his red ball career should maybe have delivered even more.

A batting average of just 28 feels way too low for a player of such talent and his final appearance, during the curtailed home series against India in which he took only six wickets, felt rather unsatisfactory.

Now he is being offered not only the chance to write a different exit but pen one of the great comeback stories of this or any other summer. Such an opportunity was always going to be tough to turn down.

In McCullum and Stokes, Moeen may also find a bit more love than under previous regimes, where it always appeared he was one of the first players to have his position compromised for the “greater good” of the team.

The current coach and captain have created a culture of positivity in which countless players are flourishing. Whether that will be enough to help a spinner now used to bowling no more than 10 overs in a day reacclimatise to the demands of Test cricket is questionable, yet it should at least be fun finding out.

This is a series which needs to deliver on the promise for the good of cricket as a whole.

With football increasingly intruding into the summer months, it is forever becoming harder for other sports to get a look-in.

Yet the early staging of this Ashes series to leave August free for The Hundred, unpopular though it might be for traditionalists, has created a window where the England Test team can capture the public focus.

To do that, they’ll need to at least give Australia a run for their money. Moeen may play a big part in that, even if his role becomes nothing more than providing some respite for the seam attack.

His own record against the Aussies is none too impressive. His bowling average of nearly 65 is worse than against any other opponent.

That is another reason for observers to question the logic behind his recall. There is more evidence to suggest this won’t work than will. But if England’s success under McCullum and Stokes has been a reminder of anything, it is that quite often in sport, logic and reason take a holiday.