With the news that Moeen Ali has been recalled to the Test team, England will field two frontline spinners together at home for only the fifth time this century. It’s not before time, writes Phil Walker.
Last week against Yorkshire, Moeen Ali splayed a double hundred and ragged it square for six second-dig wickets. A world-class show for a workaday scene, played out to a murmur of unsuspecting lifers. Worcester got themselves a win, and a bit of breathing space at the bottom. It’s great when county cricket reveals such gems. The mundane given its beautiful due, as John Updike never quite said about the four-day game.
Still, the part-timer now has 133 wickets to go with his 2,500 runs. Numbers that speak for themselves. He’s just turned 31. He knows his game inside and out. In a year in which England’s Test team has already given debuts to three new spinners – none of whom are playing in this series – they’ve returned to the man they should never have doubted in the first place. Now, for the first time on English soil, Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid, gifted outliers both, are in it together.
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