“Maybe it has an effect. Maybe it puts the players under a bit more pressure.” - Moeen Ali on what South Africa’s performance in India could do to how they play against England.
TELFORD VICE in Cape Town
MOEEN Ali’s lack of ego manifests in public in his deadpan expression, which sets him apart in an age of rampant self-promotion in sport.
But, as England’s off-spinning allrounder sat behind the microphones at a press conference in Cape Town last week, he proved there’s a personality in there somewhere. Not that he was trying to.
A question to one of the other three members of the Cape Town Blitz who were on parade unspooled, prompting Moeen to reach for the pen and paper in front of him.
He scribbled something, and with a smirk angled the page towards Liam Livingstone, who was sitting to his right. Livingstone, another English hired gun, read the message and smirked back.
What had Moeen written? One word, bang in the middle of the bottom of the page, presumably in reaction to the reporter’s question: “Stinker!”
Moeen added that kind of subtlety to England’s challenge in their previous men’s Test series in South Africa, in 2015-16. He took 7/116 in the first match, at Kingsmead, to engineer the visitors’ victory, by 241 runs — which set the tone for their 2-1 triumph.
No foreign spinner has done better in the three Tests since played in Durban, including Nathan Lyon, the Australian ace.
Unsurprisingly, Moeen’s performance didn’t feature in his own recollection of the match: “We won that first game at Durban, and from there we had a bit of momentum.
“South Africa came back slightly [winning the fourth Test, a dead rubber in Centurion, by 280 runs], but we played out of our skins to win that series against a very good side.”
Hashim Amla’s team were indeed good, but they were nowhere near their best having gone into the series with their psyche still spinning from being hammered 3-0 in India on some of the worst pitches they will encounter.
England will be back this summer — straight after South Africa have suffered another 3-0 thrashing suffered in India.
This time, the pitches couldn’t be blamed. Rather, South Africa ran out of ideas early, and with them wickets and runs, against opponents who have lost only three of the 34 home series they have played since South Africa’s visit in February and March 2000.
“Nobody goes to India now and wins,” Moeen said. “It is a very difficult place, especially if you lose that first game. Very rarely do you come back and beat them.
“As a batsman if you get out early in both innings it’s very difficult to come back.
“It’s one of those tours you have to put to bed.”
Did he think a team who have earned a reputation for mental fragility would be able to learn from and let go of what happened in India in time to get their mojo back for the first Test at Centurion on December 26?
“Maybe it has an effect. Maybe it puts the players under a bit more pressure.
“Not so much players like ‘Quinnie’, who did quite well in India …”
Quinton de Kock, Moeen’s captain at the Blitz, for whom Moeen will play the first two games of the Mzansi Super League, was second only to Dean Elgar in average and runs scored among the South Africans who suffered through all three Tests in India.
“… But I think the guys who didn’t score runs, naturally, are going to be under pressure. It depends on their own character how they come back from that.”
Moeen knows this only too well, having taken a break from the international game after being dropped following the first Ashes Test in August.
He hopes to return soon, but South Africa won’t want to star in his grand comeback. That really would be a stinker.
First published by the Sunday Times.
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