Moeen Ali: A Vital Cog Who Could Have Been Much More

When you look at the international career of Moeen Ali, the feeling you get is of promise not quite fulfilled. That seems a strange thing to say about someone who came within 5 wickets of becoming only the 4th England all-rounder – after Ian Botham, Andrew Flintoff and Stuart Broad – to complete the rare double of 2000 Test runs and 200 wickets. But the feeling persisted that Ali didn’t manage to do justice to the batting talent that fetched him 5 Test hundreds, as many as Flintoff.

The fact that the last of those centuries came against India in December 2016 tells its own story. After 2017, Moeen didn’t even pass 60 runs in a Test innings. By the time he called it quits in Test cricket after a home series against India in 2021, his average had fallen from 35, excellent for an all-rounder, to 28. By then, he had batted at every position from 1 to 9, and was frequently the scapegoat when England’s inconsistent Test side did badly. By the end, Moeen just had no enthusiasm left for the 5-day game.

It was a different story in the colored uniform. Though he had barely played for a year by then, he was one of those Eoin Morgan and Trevor Bayliss earmarked to be part of a new, attacking English ODI side after the 2015 World Cup disaster. A 57-ball 102 against the West Indies in 2017 was very much in keeping with that new template, and though he played less than half the matches as the World Cup was finally won on home soil in 2019, no one downplayed Moeen’s role in England’s ODI transformation.

He was part of the side that lost to the West Indies in the T20 World Cup final in 2016, and to New Zealand in the semi-final 5 years later, and his all-round ability had by then caught the eye of Indian T20 League franchises. The Bangalore team were the first to take a chance on him, and though it didn’t quite work out for him there, there were enough glimpses of free-stroking batting and clever bowling to get the Chennai team interested before the 2021 season. His contributions then were so weighty that he was retained ahead of the auction instead of long-term stalwarts like Suresh Raina, Faf du Plessis and Dwayne Bravo.

With no Test cricket on his calendar any more, Moeen could yet enjoy several more years as a top white-ball all-rounder. Certainly, his performances for Chennai in the Indian T20 League will be watched with keen interest after the faith the franchise and its think-tank of MS Dhoni and Stephen Fleming has shown in his talent.

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