There are small moments in a Test match from which the knock-on effect can be great and, with around 13 minutes to go before tea on the fourth day in sunny Southampton, one such seemingly inconsequential occurrence transpired.
India, from an inauspicious start in their pursuit of 245, were 123 for three and nudging thoughts towards a series decider at the Oval. Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane had grafted 101 runs, the former had brought up another half-century and English backsides were starting to twitch. The WinViz gizmo that looks to answer the age-old question of who is winning had, for the first time, just ticked in favour of the tourists at 51%. Moeen Ali, wicketless up to this point, went a fraction too straight to Kohli, who nipped inside the line and tucked it behind for what appeared at least a nailed-on single. But Adil Rashid, who is way down the list of England’s best fielders, threw himself to his right at backward square and, with this agile work, stopped the Indian captain in his tracks.
The next delivery Moeen hit the bullseye – the patch of footmark rough outside off, from which he profited in India’s first innings – and from the face of Kohli’s bat the ball flew to Alastair Cook at short-leg who could not pouch this sharp chance. Typially undeterred, Moeen tossed another into the crater, this time sneaking the ball off the underside of Kohli’s lunging glove, on to pad and plopping it into the grateful hands of Cook. The review system that had earlier seen Kohli survive an lbw shout on nine was now unequivocal.
As Moeen was swamped by his teammates on confirmation by the big screen, bringing back memories of last year’s golden summer and that match-sealing hat-trick against South Africa in south London, it was worth sparing a thought for Rashid, whose earlier support work will go unrecorded in the scorebook and yet helped set up the incision from which the guts of India’s run chase tumbled out.
Though his seven overs none for 21 were perfectly acceptable, this was the leg-spinner’s one moment of impact on a day when yet again he was a bystander. He will not begrudge his best friend in the England set-up upstaging him, however, with Moeen’s off-breaks the ideal weapon for this surface. With three further strikes following, making it nine overall, this has been some comeback from the all-rounder. “Moeen was relentless with the areas and speeds; he deserved the wickets he got,” said Kohli after his side’s defeat. It was high praise indeed, not least since his own vastly more experienced off-spinner, Ravi Ashwin, had pretty much failed to grasp the surface at all, even when factoring in a loss of snap from his lingering groin and hip injury.
In many ways this first Test appearance since a winter of discontent has been Moeen’s career in microcosm, or significant elements of it have. For a start there is the 31-year-old’s team-first attitude, selflessly rising from No 7, from which he made a vital first-innings 40, to No 3 in the second to accommodate his captain’s mid-Test retreat. But, though that initial foray helped repel the Indian charge on day one in tandem with Sam Curran’s 73, and the second proved only fleeting, it is with the ball where he again confounded those who would paint him as a part-timer but also highlighted what a wonderful but slightly confusing commodity he has become.
It was also a reminder that Moeen is no shirker when it comes to bowling his side to victory in the fourth innings of a Test. In 11 such victories he has 39 wickets at 16 runs apiece, with only Jimmy Anderson (49) and Stuart Broad (47) above him in this regard.
Perhaps England should listen to Moeen himself, who after his five-wicket haul in India’s first innings said in characteristically honest fashion: “I know deep down that I’m not the perfect spinner but I know that, given my day, I can bowl a side out.”
With this in mind, and recalling Moeen’s more chastening experiences away from home with the ball, the management should probably always look to ensure he is not the sole spinner in the team unless presented with a verdant green top. How they do this, given an abundance of all-rounders, is the true puzzle. To that end, and with thoughts soon to turn to the winter tours of Sri Lanka and the Caribbean where two or possibly three slow men will be required, there seems little value in dropping Rashid for the Oval, however much this series has, unlike that nudged shot off Kohli’s bat, passed him by a touch.
