Graeme Swann has backed the call by England to make Moeen Ali their frontline spinner going into the Ashes but believes they have “massively cocked up” by narrowing their options with the decision not to blood Adil Rashid on April’s Test tour to the Caribbean.
In naming Moeen and not Rashid in a 14-man party for a four-day pre-Ashes training camp in Spain next weekend, the England management gave their biggest indication that the Worcestershire all-rounder will keep his spot for the first Test against Australia in Cardiff starting on 8 July. Swann, a three-times Ashes-winning spinner himself, agrees.
“Moeen has to play in the first Test. He’s very natural, he rips it and I still think he’s the best option,” said Swann, speaking at a Nottinghamshire school on behalf of the charity Chance to Shine. “But England missed such a gilt-edged opportunity to see whether Adil could cut the mustard in the West Indies that it is laughable. At the time we all said it was a joke, but now it seems all the more a glaring klaxon moment.”
Rashid helped spin Yorkshire to the County Championship title last summer with 46 wickets but was overlooked in the drawn Test series with West Indies after struggling in the two warm-up games in St Kitts. Swann claims he too struggled in the corresponding match for the 2009 tour, taking nought for 160 against West Indies A, and yet his own Test career, in which he went on to claim 255 Test victims, is proof that no spinner should be written off on the basis of one outing.
“Look at his record for Yorkshire. Everyone is entitled to a shit game, especially a leg-spinner,” he said. “I honestly don’t know if he is ready to play Test cricket because he didn’t play in the West Indies. I wish I could say yes. On his record for Yorkshire I’d say yes.
“But the Ashes is a massive thing. Mentally it’s a step up from Test cricket which is in itself a step up from county cricket. I would love to have seem him play those Test in the West Indies. Those three grounds were the ideal schooling ground for Rashid and they massively cocked up there.”
Such bluntness could become a more regular feature in the England set-up if the director of cricket, Andrew Strauss, makes Swann part of the mooted “advisory panel” that was mentioned upon his own appointment at the start of May. The former Test captain intends to tap the knowledge of ex-players on an ad hoc consultancy basis but is yet to make any official appointments.
Seemingly learning his job at the highest level, Moeen could perhaps do with such input. After a breakthrough Test summer in which he claimed 19 wickets in the 3-1 series win over India, the 28-year-old has found his second year of international cricket much tougher since returning from a side strain suffered during the World Cup.
Bowling only six overs in his first Championship game back for Worcestershire after the 1-1 Test series draw with New Zealand was far from ideal given England’s desire to get overs under his belt with the red ball.
Swann, who has already worked with Moeen – they had a brief session before the defeat in Barbados at the start of May – believes confidence and game management, not ability, are the areas he must work on.
“I worked with him in Barbados… just before he bowled like a drain!” said Swann. “But Mo has bags of ability, he just doesn’t have the 10 years of spin-bowling nous and experience he would have had had he been a spin bowler rather than a batsman who used to be thrown the ball a bit. In a weird way that has put him ahead of the pack as he has avoided the coaching system that teaches spinners not to spin it in this country.
“He lacks a bit of confidence. The worst thing that happened to him was doing so well last summer and not having people around him who said: ‘Right, that’s all you need to do – don’t ever believe people who say it’s just a flash in the pan, it’s harder the second year.’
“I had that. I was puffing my chest out after my first year but former England spinners kept saying to me: ‘It gets tougher from here though, mate.’ It’s a very English thing is ‘second season syndrome’ and the notion it’ll get harder from here. But why?”
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