Moeen Ali is a floater when it comes to batting for England. Although he has taken 88 wickets bowling his off-breaks, the Birmingham–born player has given sufficient hints of developing into an all-rounder by scoring runs in the lower order. His centuries against Sri Lanka (108 not out in 2014 and 155 not out in 2016) and 108 against Pakistan this year is a reflection of his keenness to prove his worth as a batsman.
With England in search of opening partners after the retirement of Andrew Strauss, the left-handed Moeen has opened the innings with Alastair Cook in six innings, but it’s at No. 5, 6, and 7 that he has runs to show for: 231,615 and 449. He has also batted at No. 8 three times.
It was not a strange decision on the part of the England team management to mark him at No. 5 after leaving out Gary Ballance because of the latter’s inability to cope with spinners in Bangladesh. And Moeen has responded well — teaming with Joe Root for an 179-run stand for the fourth wicket and then putting on 62 for the fifth with Ben Stokes.
Fixity of purposeJoining Root at the fall of Ben Duckett, Moeen showed a fixity of purpose by farming the strike. He was steady, but cut loose when opportunities came by. He just had nine boundary shots on the first day.
After ducking to a bouncer from Mohammad Shami in Thursday’s opening over, Moeen put a ball away to short backward point, responded to a call from Stokes and ran a quick single to complete his first three figure knock away from home. The Englishman then punished fast bowler Umesh Yadav, bowling with the new ball, by striking three fours in a row.
He seemed to be in a confident mood and it was much against of the of play and his own judgement that he was bowled by not offering a shot to a ball that nipped back.
Ali not only batted for four and half hours, but also sized up the Indian spinners on a generally good batting strip and when he fell he had given England hopes of making the most in the opening Test.
