The England head coach, Trevor Bayliss, intends to rehire Saqlain Mushtaq as the team’s spin-bowling consultant following positive feedback from Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid.
Saqlain was originally brought into the coaching setup on a week-long deal that spanned England’s 330-run victory in the second Test but with winter tours to Bangladesh and India coming up – the former subject to clearance by the security director Reg Dickason next month – Bayliss will advise Andrew Strauss, the director of cricket, that more time with the former Pakistan off-spinner would be beneficial.
Speaking after the win at Old Trafford, where the Yorkshire leg-spinner Rashid missed out on selection for the final XI but Moeen claimed match figures of five for 131, Bayliss said: “Both Mo and Rash enjoyed working with him very much. By the sound of it, it was very positive and we’ll look to use him again.
“It wasn’t necessarily a lot of technical coaching – I’m sure he mentioned one or two things – it was more tactical. That’s where we think both Rash and Mo need to make improvements to go ahead in the international game.”
Despite his best return since the first Test with South Africa in Durban last December, Moeen, a top-order batsman at his county Worcestershire, has largely struggled for impact this year and a habit of sending down head-height full tosses – he has done it four times in the current series – has also crept into his game.
Bayliss said: “To be honest, I’m not sure what he’s trying to bowl on those occasions. He has put himself under a bit of pressure, I think. When you do that, it’s difficult to bowl at this level. But he bowls wicket-taking balls. For me, he’s got to work on his consistency to get the ball to bounce in the one spot a lot more often.”
It is something of a curiosity that England used Saqlain’s former team-mate and the current Pakistan bowling coach, Mushtaq Ahmed, as a mentor for the duration of Graeme Swann’s international career but since his retirement, when his replacement, Moeen, has been asked to learn his trade at the highest level, there has been no such support in the first team’s coaching setup.
Bar Saqlain’s week with the team in Manchester, and a brief consultancy role for the former England and Glamorgan spinner Robert Croft at the end of the tour to South Africa, it has fallen under the remit of the bowling coach Ottis Gibson, who was a seamer during his playing days.
While Peter Such is England’s lead spin-bowling coach, he works predominantly with the next generation at the national academy in Loughborough and around the counties; Bayliss would like a full-time spin coach infor the first-team squad but the challenge is finding greats of the game who will commit.
He added: “If you’ve got the right person, that would be a possibility. It’s good to have someone like Saqlain come in – people that have been top of their field in the past and are able to pass on their knowledge. Those greats very rarely get involved full-time, so you do have to bring them in series by series.”
