Moeen Ali looks set to return to England’s Test plans for next week’s series opener with India as one of two spinners in the squad alongside Jack Leach.
Ed Smith, the national selector, will on Thursday name what is expected to be a 13-man party for England’s 1,000th men’s Test match and will probably furnish the captain, Joe Root, with two slow-bowling options at Edgbaston in light of the heatwave in the UK.
Moeen has not played Test cricket since being dropped on the tour of New Zealand amid a chastening winter. But he is understood to have recently met Smith to discuss a possible return and was then watched by James Taylor, the selection panel’s newest member, during Worcestershire’s match at home to Somerset this week.
Though his county fell to a 141-run defeat, Moeen impressed with eight wickets across the two Somerset innings via his off-breaks – including a first five-wicket haul in first-class cricket since last year’s golden summer with the ball – while Leach also claimed two on the final day for the visitors.
The latter’s expected return, after making his Test debut in place of Moeen during the winter, will, as it did at New Road, come at the expense of Dom Bess, who played against Pakistan earlier in the summer when his county colleague suffered a broken left thumb to his bowling hand.
Bess impressed the England management with his all-round ability and attitude but Leach, a left-armer, is considered the more seasoned bowler at present and is expected to be the first-choice spinner when the five-match series against Virat Kohli’s tourists gets under way in Birmingham on Wednesday.
A late change of direction in the selection meeting could yet see Adil Rashid included, despite the leg-spinner having made himself unavailable for four-day cricket with Yorkshire. But Moeen appears the favourite and would slot into the XI at the expense of a batsman – most likely Dawid Malan – if Root and Trevor Bayliss, the head coach, decide they want to play two spinners in Birmingham without dropping a fast bowler.
Beyond the new ball pairing of Stuart Broad and James Anderson, England look set to have Chris Woakes back on his home ground after he missed the white-ball section of the summer with quad and knee problems, while Ben Stokes is fresh from claiming eight wickets for Durham away to Gloucestershire at Cheltenham.
This leaves one seam bowling berth vacant in the squad and with Mark Wood out for two weeks, after a scan revealed bruising to his left foot, it remains to be seen whether Smith and co keep faith with Sam Curran, the Surrey left-armer who made his debut against Pakistan at Headingley, or perhaps unleash Somerset’s uncapped Jamie Overton.
Overton, whose brother Craig played during the Ashes, is one of the quickest on the county circuit – as demonstrated when taking eight wickets for his county this week – but Curran’s all-round ability could yet win out, given Stokes is due to miss the second Test at Lord’s when his court case in Bristol begins on Monday 6 August; though the squad named by Smith will be for the first Test alone, there are just three days between Edgbaston and Lord’s and continuity may be the order of the day.
Batting-wise England appear reasonably settled, with Keaton Jennings resuming alongside Alastair Cook at the top of the order after his return in Leeds at the start of June. That said, Surrey’s Rory Burns and Ollie Pope – the leading run-scorers in Division One – are pushing hard and Malan in particular will be under pressure for his place having averaged 29 from his 14 caps to date.
Jason Roy, a leading light in the one-day side, is another understood to be in the thoughts of the selectors. Smith has already shown he is happy to factor in form across international formats, rather than simply looking at County Championship returns, as demonstrated by Jos Buttler’s return to the Test side this summer.
England (probable) JE Root (capt), AN Cook, KK Jennings, DJ Malan, BA Stokes, JM Bairstow (wkt), JC Buttler, MM Ali, CR Woakes, SCJ Broad, JM Anderson, MJ Leach, SM Curran
