England all-rounder Moeen Ali isn’t thinking too far ahead in time regarding his Test future in spite of making a U-turn with respect to a Test career which was brought to an end after playing his 64th match in September 2021. Ali is all set to join various other high-profile cricketers who came out of retirement over the years to play at the highest level again.
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Ali, who reckons his stopgap recall as a “free-hit” with nothing to lose personally, hasn’t played a first-class match in the last 21 months. Interestingly, this is the second time when Ali’s name has popped up for a Test comeback.
Ali, who sounds to be a fan of the Bazball era under head coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes, did explicitly mention that he wouldn’t have changed his mind had it not been for the latter leading the national team in this format. For the unversed, Ali was open to tour Pakistan last year as well but talks hadn’t materialized as England opted to hand debuts to the likes of Will Jacks, Liam Livingstone and Rehan Ahmed instead.
Moeen Ali On Test Future Post Ashes 2023
Addressing the reporters as an English Test cricketer again ahead of the first Ashes 2023 Test against Australia in Birmingham, Ali clearly expressed that he is concentrating on the immediate assignment without taking into consideration what could happen by the end of the series.
Forget the series, Ali was frank enough to admit and acknowledge that he’s part of the squad only for the first two Tests for now.
“We’ll see [if to continue with Test cricket or not]. I’m a kind of guy whose with ‘Go with the flow’ kind of thing. At the moment, it’s just these two games. Obviously, they’ve picked the squad for two games. Let’s play these games and see what happens.”
86 runs and five wickets short of completing 3,000 runs and 200 wickets in Test cricket respectively, one expects the 35-year old player to achieve these personal milestone during the course of first two matches later this month.
Moeen Ali Test Record vs Australia
Set to partake in his fourth Ashes series, Ali is wary of his middling Test record against Australia. In 11 Tests that he played throughout Ashes 2015, 2017-2018 and 2019, Ali had picked 20 wickets at an average of 64.65.
Realizing that these numbers were affected by his record away from home (five wickets in as many matches at an average of 115), a more “experienced” Ali expressed confidence in his plans for the Aussie batters this time round.
“The majority of those numbers were in Australia, where I’ve found it quite difficult to bowl. I did have a couple of little issues there but they have always played me well. I have picked up a few wickets here and there, particularly in England. I think I’m a bit smarter with my bowling [now]. When I played previously, I just bowled and didn’t think too much about it.”
As far as batting is concerned, Ali has scored 476 runs at an average of 25.05 including a couple of half-centuries across 19 innings against Australia.
